Frederick Arthur Bridgman

Gerald P. Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pan Arabian Corporation

Paris, Salon, 1903, no. 264, as Procession en l'honneur d'Isis
New York, Society of American Artists, 1905, no. 233

Ilene Susan Fort, “Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American Fascination with the Exotic Near East,” Ph.D. diss., The City University of New York, 1990, pp. 405-6, 462 and 465, illustrated pl. 202, illustrated (as Egyptian Procession in Honor of Isis, with incorrect provenance)
Gerald M. Ackerman, American Orientalists, Paris, 1994, p. 48, illustrated p. 49 (as Procession in Honor of Isis)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been restored fairly recently, and could certainly be hung in its current condition. The frame is attractive and elaborate but needs a small amount of restoration. The canvas has been lined. The lining supports an old break in the canvas in the center of the right side, which runs about 7 inches vertically and another 5 inches horizontally. It is a thin tear but has received retouching nonetheless. There is another tear in the top of the horizon in the upper right that runs about 3 inches horizontally. There is a small damage in front of the upheld banner at the front of the procession, and another puncture in the palm trees in the upper left above the processional boat. There is an L-shaped tear measuring about 3 by 3 inches beneath the front legs of the bull. These structural damages are all isolated. The paint layer is not abraded or stained, and it is in very lovely and healthy condition elsewhere. The lining is reasonably effective and could be improved if necessary. However, the picture is certainly very presentable as is.
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In 1903, Frederick Arthur Bridgman exhibited an Egyptian processional scene at the Paris Salon. Called Procession en l’honneur d’Isis and featuring an elaborately detailed Egyptian interior, it was later sent to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis and the National Academy of Design in New York.  Though the present whereabouts of that highly acclaimed canvas are not known, the variation presented here, painted in 1902, offers a clear indication of the reason for its fame.

An Egyptian Procession was one of several historical genre scenes produced late in Bridgman’s career, and one of four major processional scenes painted between 1879 and 1919.  These works were closely related — both thematically and compositionally — to the artist’s historical reconstructions of the 1870s, the most famous of which were Les funerailles d’une momie (location unknown), exhibited at the 1877 Paris Salon, and the Procession du boeuf Apis of circa 1879 (Private Collection). The archaeological detail and exotic subject matter of these paintings immediately compelled comparisons to Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Bridgman’s teacher and mentor in Paris during the 1860s.  (Indeed, it was said that, “[W]hen translated into American, Gérôme means Frederic A. Bridgman,” The Perry Magazine, June 1904, 6.10, p. 421).  Bridgman would later bring his own sensibility to Gérôme’s academic teachings, adopting a more naturalistic aesthetic emphasizing the opalescent colors and painterly brushwork seen here.

In the present work, the Graeco-Roman temple of Philae acts as a picturesque backdrop for an ancient Egyptian religious procession in honor of the goddess Isis (Navigium Isidis), to whom it was dedicated.  The pharaoh who leads the way, incense-burner in hand, wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, indicating Isis’s universal worship, while the sacred Apis bull just behind him is adorned with flowers and a solar disk.  (As the cow goddess, Isis was believed to be the mother of Apis.)  Bridgman made sketches at the fabled site first in 1874 and again during his numerous subsequent visits to the region; these, combined with his diligent research into the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, allowed him to create a remarkably vibrant — if ultimately over-embellished — scene of ritual and revel. 

It is worth noting that the setting of Bridgman’s picture would have been particularly resonant in 1902 – this was the year that the Aswan Low Dam was built by the British, threatening the monuments at Philae by changing the rise and fall of the surrounding Nile River.

This catalogue note was written by Dr. Emily M. Weeks.