Object Description
‘Travellers in the Desert,’ A large Orientalist painting by C. J. Theriat
American, Late 19th Century
Canvas: 80cm x 126cm x 2cm
Frame: 95cm x 141cm x 5.5cm
Executed in oil on canvas in a giltwood frame, signed, inscribed and dated lower left ‘C. J. Theriat Biskra. (18)95,’ this excellent Orientalist painting shows a desert scene with two figures, one riding a mule, in the Algerian Desert at Biskra. It was made by the American artist Charles James Theriat, a popular and enduring Orientalist artist, who also produced portraits, city-scapes, and interior views, but who gravitated towards landscape and genre paintings set in North Africa, after his first visit to Algeria in 1888.
Theriat studied at the Academie Julian in Paris until 1885, and enjoyed his most fruitful period in the subsequent fifteen years or so. This charming work places the tranquillity of the Algerian desert at its heart, only interrupting the natural landscape briefly to complement it with a small pair of figures, wistfully travelling across the open plain.