Jean-Léon Gérôme

Between 1856 and 1874, Gérôme traveled extensively and under rigorous conditions in North Africa: he spent six months on a boat on the Nile in 1856, and returned several times to Egypt, sometimes extending his tour by visiting on safari Sinai, Jerusalem and Damascus. Inspired by what he saw, Gérôme translated his exotic experiences to painted subjects, developing a repertoire of subject matter that received great acclaim in his time.  In addition to the expansive tableaux of local mosques, baths, and bazaars, the artist frequently turned to genre scenes like The Café House, Cairo (1883, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and The Sword Merchant of Cairo (1869, Private Collection), both of which offered an intimate, anecdotal record of daily Egyptian life. Such vivid scenes endured in Gérôme’s mind long after he returned to Paris.  To render The Flagmakers of 1883, Gérôme supplemented his own recollection of Egypt through the employment of ethnic models found in Paris, attired in authentic costumes along with the use of contemporary photographs of the region. Photographic souvenirs were particularly useful to the artist, providing a fixed, visual record of the spectacle of Cairo’s streets. According to Gerald M. Ackerman, The Flagmakers was based on a photograph attributed to Ermé Désiré (Fig. 1), a renowned French photographer who captured Egyptian craftsmen at work outside their shops, particularly basket makers, bamboo bench makers, weavers, and tailors. Gérôme was fascinated by these artisans absorbed in their craft: creating utilitarian, yet beautiful, objects while perched in dark shops looking out of massive stone buildings onto the Cairene streets. Though conceptually similar, Gérôme’s composition is not an exact transcription of the photograph. The artist replaced the more humble and haphazard clothes of the tailor’s shop with the magnificent, decorated flags, with their deeply saturated reds, greens, and cool creams. Perhaps based on the banners Gérôme bought in Cairo to hang in his studio, these flags become virtually a part of the costume of the sewers who drape the heavy fabric across their laps.  They sit, attention focused downward, hands poised in pulling thread, at one with the intricate craft at hand. Artistic effects are heightened by the slightly off center, angular perspective of the scene; the wide opening of the shop, framed in wood and topped by a moucharabieh, allows the viewer a glance into the murky, somewhat mysterious store beyond.

By depicting these craftsmen working on such regal cloth, the artist imbues them with an easily felt sense of dignity. Further, in his highly finished, realistic technique, Gérôme downplays his painterly presence while ingeniously drawing attention to highly rendered details---from the worn slippers dropped on the dusty street to the intricate carving of the moucharabieh.  For both the artist and the viewer, The Flagmakers presents an image informed by a true devotion to the land and its people—a mix that must have fascinated Gérôme's audience, expanding their world view at the same time.