French School, circa 1800

The subject of this intriguing and unusual portrait appears to be a Moroccan sentry, seated in a North African desert landscape. In the background is a spring, at which two lions – probably now extinct Barbary lions (or lions de l'Atlas), depicted in several works by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) – refresh themselves. The main figure wears a turban and an earring, with otherwise plain garments, and carries a North African rifle, probably identifying him as a guard employed by a Moroccan ruler in the Sahara.

A number of French artists travelled to the Near and Middle East and North Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century, including Jean-Léon Gérôme , who spent time in Egypt and Asia Minor in 1868, and Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), who travelled to Morocco in 1832, sketching subjects to employ subsequently in Orientalist paintings. The theme of soldiers was clearly a popular one, as exemplified by Gérôme's portrait of a Bashi-Bazouk (Turkish mercenary soldier),¹ or the paintings of Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803–1860), whose depictions of military life were elevated to the genre of history painting.² In contrast to the romanticised exotic silks and fantastical accoutrement that adorn many figures in these sorts of works, however – see, for example, Horace Vernet's Portrait of an Arab – the sitter here is depicted naturalistically, in seemingly authentic clothing (although the landscape is clearly fanciful).³

¹ https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440723

² https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436116

³ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Horace_Vernet-Portrait_Arab.jpg