Reading visual art: 151 Camels in life

Camels have continued to feature in paintings showing more recent times, from events at the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleon was in Egypt.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), General Bonaparte and his Staff in Egypt (1867), oil on canvas, 58.4 x 88.2 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Jean-Léon Gérôme made several paintings showing Napoleon in Egypt, including this highly detailed and intricate version of General Bonaparte and his Staff in Egypt from 1867. The French Campaign in Egypt and Syria had been in 1798-1801, so this was still relatively recent history, even when viewed from the distance of the final years of the Second Empire.

Dromedaries were introduced to Australia in the nineteenth century to carry people and loads through its arid regions. They came to prominence in the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860 to cross the continent of Australia from south (Melbourne) to north in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902), Memorandum of the Start of the Exploring Expedition (1860), oil on canvas, 97.4 x 153.2 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Nicholas Chevalier painted this Memorandum of the Start of the Exploring Expedition to mark the occasion in 1860. The team left Royal Park, Melbourne on the afternoon of 20 August 1860 with nineteen men and about twenty tonnes of equipment and stores. Included were more than twenty-four camels, horses and wagons. Only one of the team survived to complete the crossing, and seven died, including both Burke and Wills.

David Roberts (1796–1864), Isle of Graia, Gulf of Akabah (1839), lithograph made by Pouis Haghe of original painting, published in book published 1842-45, US Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

David Roberts’ painting of the Isle of Graia, Gulf of Akabah (1839), shown here as a lithograph, is unusual for showing camels on the beach. We’re used to seeing dogs, horses, donkeys, even cows and sheep, but the ‘ship of the desert’ isn’t a common sight on the beach. The coastline of the Gulf of Aqaba (or Gulf of Eilat) is on the eastern side of the Sinai Peninsula, and before urbanisation, development, and the advent of tourists, had a wild desert beauty, as shown here.

As artists visited North Africa more during the latter half of the nineteenth century, paintings of camels in their natural habitat became more common.

Marià Fortuny (1838–1874), Camels Reposing, Tangiers (1865), brush and watercolour over black graphite underdrawing, on off-white paper, 21 x 37.5 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887), New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

Marià Fortuny’s Camels Reposing, Tangiers (1865) is a watercolour sketch made over a heavily-worked and now visible graphite drawing, showing a group of camels resting near the city of Tangier, not far from Tétouan, in northern Morocco.

Alberto Pasini (1826–1899), The Caravan of the Shah of Persia (1867), oil on canvas, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Alberto Pasini’s painting of The Caravan of the Shah of Persia from 1867 is a superbly wide view of an extensive royal caravan crossing a desert plain, including a couple of elephants at the right.

Ivan/Hovhannes Aivazovsky (1817–1900), Tiflis (Tbilisi) (1868), oil, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

When Ivan Aivazovsky visited Tiflis, now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia in 1868, his superb painting of this cosmopolitan city shows camels on its bustling streets.

Niko Pirosmani (1862–1918), Tatar Camel Driver (c 1900-1918), oil on oilcloth, dimensions not known, Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts საქართველოს ხელოვნების მუზეუმი, Tbilisi, Georgia. Wikimedia Commons.

Even in 1900-18, when Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani painted this Tatar Camel Driver, they would still have been a common sight in parts of Tbilisi visited by traders from the south, and the artist was clearly familiar with the animal. Tatar traders moved their goods on Bactrian camels as far as Crimea and other parts of southern Ukraine.

Eugen Bracht (1842–1921), In the Arabian Desert (1882), oil on canvas, 121.5 x 200 cm, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Eugen Bracht’s paintings of the Middle East avoid the crowded and bustling towns, preferring the barren desert where just a handful of people travel with their camels In the Arabian Desert (1882).

Eugen Bracht (1842–1921), From the Sinai Desert (1884), oil on canvas, 75.8 x 121 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Bracht’s slightly later view From the Sinai Desert (1884) shows more groups on the move in the relentless heat. The ship of the desert indeed, but never argue with a half-ton camel, even if it’s an entry in a beauty pageant.