Attributed to Eugène Fromentin

Painted with the boldness and vigour typical of the artist, this cavalcade of Arab horsemen is unpublished and therefore does not appear in the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s works. However, it displays all the characteristics of the artist’s paintings: a muted range of colours, tending towards grey; bright, lively accents in the brushwork; and a thick, richly textured paint surface.

The bay horse on the left of the composition can be compared with several paintings and studies by Fromentin, especially a study of a horse made for the Arab falconer in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (see J. Thompson and B. Wright, Eugène Fromentin 1820-1876, Courbevoie, 2008, ill. p. 220). Another drawing illustrated by Thompson and Wright (op. cit., 2008, p. 429, no. D81) also seems to have parallels with this same horse, here rearing higher and ridden by a horseman whose headcloth flutters in the wind, as in the painting.