Late 19th-Century Signed Orientalist Watercolor of Egypt by Gabrielle De Veaux Clements

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On offer is a mixed-media Orientalist drawing and watercolor done by American painter, printmaker and muralist Gabrielle de Veaux Clements … Read more On offer is a mixed-media Orientalist drawing and watercolor done by American painter, printmaker and muralist Gabrielle de Veaux Clements (1858–1948). It was very likely done from direct observation in Egypt between 1895-1905.

SCENE: The work captures an encampment featuring resting camels along with figures in traditional regional attire against a backdrop of walled architecture and a grove of palms. It conveys energy in the immediate light, figures and positions of the camels quickly depicted before things shifted. The loose, sketchy quality, the exposed paper background and the atmospheric wash of this watercolor is almost certainly the direct field study—the raw material she captured under the Egyptian sun to fuel her larger studio printmaking projects later back in America.

ARTIST: Clements traveled extensively and captured scenes across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Following her time at the Académie Julian in Paris in mid-1880s, and a busy period painting church murals in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. (1890s), Clements moved to Baltimore in 1895 to teach art at the Bryn Mawr School. During her tenure there, circa 1895–1905, she regularly spent extended leaves or summer sabbaticals traveling abroad. Her journeys to Algiers and Egypt and the Middle East occurred primarily during this teaching window.

STYLE: This piece matches other recorded Orientalist works from her output, such as her etching “North African Street Scene”, which also captures robed figures outside a large sunlit compound and is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Classic elements of Orientalism include documenting the "exotic everyday,” what western artists viewed as a romanticized, biblical, or timeless way of life. Typically, there’s a compositional focus on camels and nomadic life since the camel symbolizes the desert and North African commerce.

Further, Orientalist works are filled with atmospheric light and often done with a sketch-like immediacy. While some European Orientalists favored tight, hyper-realistic oil paintings, American travelers frequently utilized graphite, colored pencils, or light watercolors to capture scenes quickly on site. In this work Clements uses a delicate, cross-hatched sketching technique that emphasizes bright sunlight by leaving large portions of the paper bare or lightly toned to simulate the washing effect of intense desert heat.

Lastly, Orientalist artists frequently added geographical tags to their signatures to validate their travels as true, first-hand accounts. Clements explicitly signed her piece "Egypt," transforming the artwork from a generic study into a certified travel document meant for exhibitions back in the United States.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS: Gabrielle De Veaux Clements' artworks, particularly her innovative etchings, drawings and mural fragments, are held in several major American museums and heritage institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, all in Washington, D.C.

Signature/Maker’s Mark: Lower left corner (photos #5-6). Image dimensions: 10 inches high by 9.5 inches wide. Note: The artist’s middle name is misspelled on the label verso. See less