A Chief of Abyssinia

c. 1870

Henri Regnault

Painter, French, 1843 - 1871

Shown from the shoulders up and from a low vantage point, a man with dark brown skin and black hair looks up and to our left in this vertical portrait painting. His shoulders are angled to our right, but he turns his head to look off with dark eyes. His lower lip comes slightly forward from the upper, and his mustache continues in lines from the corners of his mouth down to his square jawline. His hair creates a halo around his face, and a crimson-red cloth wraps across his shoulders. He is lit from our upper right, and the background brightens from golden yellow along the right edge of the canvas to vivid, shimmering yellow to the left. The portrait is loosely painted, especially in the clothing and the background.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 81

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

John W. Macartney, Washington, at least in 1897.[1] Rudolph Max Kauffmann [1882-1956], Chevy Chase, Maryland;[2] gift 21 April 1954 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] Macartney, a Washington banker, lent the painting to an exhibition in 1897 in Washington.
[2] It is possible the painting was also owned by Rudolph Kauffmann's father, Samuel H. Kauffman (1829-1906). The elder Kauffmann was one of the owners of The Washington Evening Star newspaper, and his obituary noted that his residence contained "one of the finest private art collections in Washington" ("Samuel H. Kauffmann Dead," The New York Times [16 March 1906]).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1897

  • Loan Exhibition of Paintings under the auspices of the Society of Washington Artists, Washington, 1897, no. 51, as A Chief of Abyssinia.[1]

1982

  • Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting 1800-1880, Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester; Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, 1982, fig. 86.

1983

  • La Vie Moderne: Nineteenth Century French Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Columbus Museum of Arts and Sciences, Georgia; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tampa Museum; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Akron Art Museum, 1983-1985, no. 20, repro.

2014

  • Benjamin-Constant: Marvels and Mirages of Orientalism, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2014-2015, no. 6, repro. (shown only in Montreal).

2017

  • The Black Figure in the European Imaginary, The George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, 2017, pl. 23.

Inscriptions

lower right: AR

Wikidata ID

Q46629723

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