Rudolf Ernst

In this richly finished work, a turbaned nobleman in a silk Ottoman Empire robe reclines on a tiger skin against a blue and white-tiled background, enjoying the fragrant smoke of a nargileh by his side. The eclectic components of the composition - the tilework, the West Persian carpet, the hanging Ladik prayer rug, silverware, monumental Ottoman candlestick, and the model’s smooth gleaming skin contrasting with his rich silk robe - make this painting, like many of Ernst's best works, a veritable tapestry in pattern and texture, a cumulative memory of his disparate travels in the Orient.  

After studying at the Vienna Academy, Ernst travelled to Rome and, in the 1880s, to Spain, Morocco, and Tunisia. Later travels would take him to Egypt and, in 1890, to Turkey. In 1876, Ernst settled in France, exhibiting regularly at the Salon de la Société des artistes français and eventually taking French nationality. After starting out painting portraits and genre scenes, from 1885 Ernst turned exclusively to painting Orientalist subjects, which he worked up from the sketches, photographs, souvenirs, and memories accumulated during his travels. He also taught himself the art of faïence, the better to understand (and render in paint) the qualities of tiles and ceramics.

Like fellow Austrian emigré artists Ludwig Deutsch and Jean Discart working in Paris, Ernst was strongly influenced by the academic style of Jean-Léon Gérôme, placing great value on the minute observation of light as well as the architectural setting and all the details within it. Almost all his paintings were executed in his studio in Paris, which he decorated in an eclectic Eastern style, and in which he would paint wearing a taboosh, in order to transport himself mentally into the world created in his paintings. The Emir’s Comforts is an artful tour de force intended to dazzle a western audience fascinated by the Orient.