Edwin Henry Landseer Paintings
1802 - 1873 Painter, Sculptor, Etcher, Animalier, England, Victorian Neoclassicism
The Arab Tent, 1866
Oil on canvas, 60 5/8 x 88 7/8 inches (154 x 226 cm)
Wallace Collection, London Animals & Hunting Scenes Paintings
Although not dated, The Arab Tent was no doubt painted shortly before it was shown at the 1866 Royal Academy exhibition. It shows an arab mare and her foal resting on an eastern carpet with two greyhounds whose sleek and graceful heads wittily echo the heads of the horses. At the top of the composition two monkeys, including one wearing an ear-ring and clutching an orange, lie among palm fronds. The pipes in the turquoise jar and the smoking brazier suggest that the animals owner is not far away. The painting is unusual among Landseers works in showing an oriental scene. The precise nationality of the tent and its occupants, however, has been the subject of some confusion. The picture was first exhibited as Mare and Foal - Indian Tent, but it was soon called The Arab Tent and none of the objects shown in it seems to be Indian.
The Arab Tent History :
The painting was bought from Landseer by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, who probably sold it to Sir Richard Wallace in 1878 for £7,912. This makes The Arab Tent probably the most expensive painting of art ever acquired for the Wallace Collection. The Prince, habitually short of funds, may have taken advantage of Wallaces generosity and his desire for social advancement.
Related Paintings in the Wallace Collection
Edwin Landseer, Doubtful Crumbs, 1859
The human characteristics with which Landseer endowed his animals in some of his paintings were one of the principal causes of his popular success. Although this aspect of his art is muted in The Arab Tent, it can clearly be seen in Doubtful Crumbs where a little terrier gazes hungrily at a bone guarded by a dozing mastiff.
