Jean-Léon Gérôme, Sais And His Donkey, c. 1898
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Painting Breathes Life Into Sculpture, 1893
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Venus Rising (The Star), 1890
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Tanagra, 1890
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, c. 1890
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Late in his career, Gérôme turned to the medium of sculpture. Between 1890 and 1893, he executed both sculpted and painted variations on the theme of Pygmalion and Galatea, as the tale is recounted in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” All of those works depict the moment when the sculpture of Galatea was brought to life by the goddess Venus, in fulfillment of Pygmalion’s wish for a wife as beautiful as the sculpture he created.
In 1890, Gérôme commented that he had “just begun” a painting of Pygmalion and Galatea. This is one of three known versions in oil of the subject, all likely based on the plaster model of a lifesize marble sculpture (Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California). In each painting, the sculpture appears at a different angle, as though it was being viewed in the round.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Snake Charmer, 1889
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Selling Slaves In Rome, 1886
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Tiger and Cubs, c. 1884
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Although Gérôme’s fame rests on his Orientalist imagery, he was also a prolific animalier. Late in life, he recalled that as a young artist he made daily visits to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris during the summer months and produced studies inspired by these visits. In the 1880s, Gérôme persisted in painting tigers in imaginary landscapes. The tiger is not indigenous to North Africa, but the rocky terrain of “Tiger and Cubs” is evocative of Egypt, where Gérôme first traveled in 1856. The picture was probably painted about 1884, along with a nocturnal desert scene with a tiger that he exhibited at that year’s Salon (“La Nuit au désert”; now lost).
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Egyptian Water Carrier, c. 1882
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pollice Verso, 1872
