James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot

E.J. Van Wisselingh & Co., Amsterdam

Konsthandel De Poort, The Hague

Private Collection, England

Sotheby's, London, 25 November 1987, lot 27

Private Collection

Sale: Sotheby's London, 9 December 2020, lot 26

Willard E. Misfeldt, The Albums of James Tissot, 1982, illustrated p,120, plate IV.48

Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Prophets, Priests and Queens: James Tissot's men and Women of the Old Testament, 6 May- 30 December 2023, Provo, Utah

This dramatic painting by 19th-century French artist James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot depicts the Old Testament story of the arrival of the Queen of Sheba with her caravan of gifts for King Solomon. The work is one of a series of pictures painted following Tissot’s conversion to Catholicism. His new-found faith incidentally coincided with the French Catholic revival, which evolved in stark contrast to the secular themes of the French Third Republic. In addition, Tissot’s style differed from the prevailing French aesthetic, as he moved away from impressionism, pointillism, and heavy oil washes. Shifting toward realism, Tissot traveled to the Middle East to paint studies of the people and the landscape. Initially executed in gouache, his depictions of biblical events were exhibited in Paris, London, and New York to great critical acclaim, and were eventually published in a French edition of La Sainte Bible in 1904. This painting, based on his earlier illustration of the same subject, exudes more spectacle than the original gouache, especially in Tissot’s focus on the image of the queen and her all-female retinue, her regal bearing, and by making only the merest suggestion of the presence of the king, as his likeness is entirely excluded from the canvas. 

Tissot’s painting is also comparable to Sir Edward John Poynter’s The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon (Art Gallery of New South Wales, ca. 1890), yet differs in its emphasis on the religious and emotional significance of the moment, rather than on the accuracy of costume and architectural details. This was due, in part, to his muted palette of gray and gold. Tissot’s painting also reveals a greater prowess in both composition and atmosphere by employing superior use of light and shadow.