Lot 54. Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904), The Mandolin Player, signed and dated ‘J.L. GEROME/1858.’ (centre left), oil on canvas, 16 ¼ x 11 3/8 in. (41.2 x 29 cm). Estimate GBP 150,000 - GBP 200,000 (USD 193,500 - USD 258,000) © Christie's Images Ltd 2017

Note: Gérôme was an indefatigable traveller. He seemed always to be on the go, even into his seventies. They were often long trips, sometimes of several months. One wonders how he got so much work done. When his studio assistant, the sculptor Decorchemont, suggested he should slow down a bit, he replied, 'You really think that I have the time to slow down at my age?'. 

Gérôme's most important teacher was Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), who was a supreme master of stance, posture, placement and contrapposto. Delaroche taught Gérôme how to see and project the frame and muscles under the skin and clothing of figures to show the tensions of the inner balance that supported a pose. It is that developed talent which underlies the strong presence of the figure in this picture. From the 1870s single-figures in Oriental costumes and settings becomes a steady part of Gérôme's production. 

The present figure can be identified as an Arnaut, a term often used for an Albanian soldier, an irregular soldier in the Turkish army. They were recognisable by their pleated skirts, somewhat of a national Albanian costume. After Egypt became independent from Turkey, there were evidently plenty of them in Cairo who earned a living by various jobs: as guards, animal keepers, and models for foreign painters.  

Gérôme's first oriental costume picture was of an Arnaut in bright sunlight with a rifle on his shoulder, leading a corvé of recruits across the desert, perhaps for service in the army or for work on the Suez canal. It is carefully painted, with strong plein air effects -- particularly complex on the Arnaut's skirt; for this difficult effect, Gérôme worked from a photograph of the skirt shot on a sunlit roof, perhaps that of his own house.