Siout, Egypt
1874
Painter, American, 1823 - 1880
Although many nineteenth-century American landscape painters traveled abroad in search of subjects, Sanford Gifford was one of the very few who ventured beyond England and the Continent. Early in 1869 he traveled the Nile from Cairo to the first cataract (actually rapids) and back. On March 4 he reached the village of Siout, which lay in the midst of an extensive and fertile plain below the Libyan Hills at the start of a great caravan route running through the Libyan Desert to the Sudan. The town was known for its picturesqueness and its history, having been the capital of the thirteenth nome (province) of Upper Egypt during antiquity and the birthplace of Plotinus, the great Neoplatonic philosopher. Gifford described the view that inspired this painting in his journal:
Looking westward, the town with its domes and minarets lay between us and the sun, bathed in a rich and beautiful atmosphere. Behind, on the right, were the yellow cliffs of the Libyan mts., running back into the tender grades of distance. Between us and the town were fields of grain, golden green with the transparent light. On the right was a tent with sheep and beautiful horses, the sunlight sparkling on a splendid white stallion. On the left the road ran in, with a fountain and figures of men and women and camels. The whole glowing and gleaming under the low sun. [1]
Siout, Egypt, is the most important and the finest of Gifford's dozen or so known Egyptian works and ably demonstrates his mastery of both atmospheric and linear perspective. The glowing light serves both to give tonal unity and balance to the overall composition and to reveal the myriad details of the scene with exceptional clarity. The result is a work that is less about the physical facts of the scene it depicts and more about the very act of perceiving. As one of the artist's contemporaries wrote:
Gifford's art was poetic and reminiscent. . . It was nature passed through the alembic [a device that refines or transmutes through distillation] of a finely organized sensibility. [2]
(Text by Franklin Kelly, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)
Notes1. Journal III (Egypt), March 4, 1867; quoted in Sanford Robinson Gifford [exh. cat., University of Texas Art Museum] (Austin, 1970), 29.
2. "Sanford R. Gifford. His Life and Character as Artist and Man," in A Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, N.A. [exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art] (New York, 1881), 8.
West Building Main Floor, Gallery 67
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 53.3 x 101.6 cm (21 x 40 in.)
framed: 91.1 x 139.7 x 13.3 cm (35 7/8 x 55 x 5 1/4 in.) -
Accession
1999.7.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Possibly Timothy B. Blackstone [1829-1900], Chicago, by 1876.[1] J.I. Nesmith, Brooklyn, by 1880;[2] (Vose Galleries, Boston); Webster and Douglas B. Collins, Longmeadow, Massachusetts, by 1970; (Vose Galleries, Boston); sold 28 January 1977 to Jerald Dillon Fessenden, New York;[3] purchased jointly 1986 by (James Maroney, New York) and (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York);[4] purchased 1 February 1999 by NGA.
[1] A painting by Gifford titled Siout, the Capital of Upper Egypt, possibly the NGA painting, was lent to a Chicago exhibition in 1876 by Blackstone, who was the president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, founding president of the Union Stock Yards, and benefactor of the Art Institute of Chicago. Blackstone also lent eight other paintings to the 1876 exhibition.
[2] The painting was lent by Nesmith to the Gifford memorial exhibition in 1880.
[3] Vose Galleries received payment for the painting on 31 January 1977 (see copy of invoice in NGA curatorial files).
[4] See correspondence and documentation in NGA curatorial files.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1876
Possibly The Art Gallery of the Inter-State Industrial Exposition of Chicago, 1876, no. 201, as Siout, the Capital of Upper Egypt.
1879
Spring Exhibition (Thirty-Eighth Reception), Brooklyn Art Association, 1879, no. 342, as Siout, Upper Egypt.
1880
The Memorial Collection of the Works of the Late Sanford Robinson Gifford, N.A., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1880-1881, no. 114, as Siût, Egypt.
1970
Sanford Robinson Gifford, University of Texas Art Museum, Austin; The Albany Institute of History and Art; Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1970-1971, no. 52, repro.
1980
American Light: The Luminist Movement 1850-1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980, fig. 126, as The Desert at Siout, Egypt.
1984
The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, The Allure of North Africa and the Near East, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1984, no. 43, color repro. as The Desert at Siout.
1988
Adventure & Inspiration: American Artists in Other Lands, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., 1988, no. 50, as The Desert at Siout.
2000
Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.
2003
Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Stanford R. Gifford, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2003-2004, no. 49, repro.
Bibliography
1869
Gifford, Sanford Robinson. Journal III (Egypt). 4 March 1869: 87.
1879
"Pictures/Notes on the Works in the Academy Exhibition." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (26 April 1879): 1, col. 6.
1881
Weir, John F. A Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford, N.A., New York, 1881: no. 620.
1968
Weiss, Ila. "Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1823-1880." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1968: xx, xxxvi n. 66, 293, 449 nn. 9 and 66.
1987
Weiss, Ila. Poetic Landscape: The Art and Experience of Sanford R. Gifford. Newark, 1987: 122, 138, 297, 298, repro.
1995
Avery, Kevin J. "The Panorama and Its Manifestation in American Landscape Painting, 1795-1870." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1995: 368-369, fig. 184.
2001
Applegate, Heidi Stoltzfus. "Sanford Robinson Gifford in the Orient." M.A. thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, 2001: 18-30, 91, fig. 7.
2004
Vigué, Jordi. Great Masters of American Art. New York, 2004: 197, repro.
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 325, no. 262, color repro.
Inscriptions
lower right: S. R. Gifford 1874; reverse: Siout S R Gifford
Wikidata ID
Q20188784