Outside Cairo

Date

1830-1847

Creator

The subject of Marilhat’s Orientalist image is a gateway near Cairo. A groomed camel and several figures clad in exotic Eastern dress populate the scene. Like other nineteenth-century French Orientalists, including Eugène Delacroix, Marilhat’s sketches from his travels served as inspiration for his later landscapes of North Africa. This work echoes several Orientalist themes, including archaism and decay. Marilhat’s delicate and hazy forms convey a sense of tranquility and stillness. While his use of pastel and earthy tones and rendering of soft light captures the rustic beauty of the scene, his attention to detail in the illustration of the crumbling building, overgrown with moss and filled with small cracks, perpetuates the notion of a deteriorating culture. Signed "Marilhat" in the lower left. written by Emma Lyandres, St. Andrews University, Scotland, 2022