A Street in Tangiers

1860 or 1862

Mariano Fortuny Marsal

Artist, Spanish, 1838 - 1874

Seven men sit or stand in a town street in front of a bone-brown stucco building in this horizontal watercolor painting. Light pours across the road from the right, making the surface glow parchment white. The building is close to us and takes up the left two-thirds of the composition. Its face is flat except for a wide, deeply shadowed arch, which is about twice the height of the standing person, and a shallowly projecting structure that encases the second story of the corner. This structure is pierced to create intricate tracery and is supported by corbels. Three people sit or recline against the building façade in the middle of the composition. They wear tattered clothing in ivory white, scarlet red, ultramarine blue, beige, and black. Their skin is painted in tones of ash white, and they have beards. Their eyes appear to be closed. One man hunches over a long staff across his lap, and the head of another man rests back against the wall, his mouth downturned and eyebrows gathered. The reclining person’s bare legs stretch long, and his slippers lie near bare feet as he props his head in one hand. A fourth man is wrapped in white cloth and stands looking at the trio, facing away from us. A fifth man perches atop a donkey, swaddled in pale peach and white fabric and huddled around a long rifle braced upright in front of him. Now we realize that the long staff the other man held is also the barrel of a rifle. A second pale donkey stands in profile facing our left in front of the mounted man, who looks down at a man who returns his gaze as he stands behind that second donkey. In the right third of the watercolor is a view down an alley-like street spanned occasionally with arches or walkways. People man tables set out in front of the buildings there and others look at the wares. Another man swathed in black fabric huddles near the corner of the building. The artist inscribed and dated the lower right corner of the watercolor, “A M Stewart son ami Fortuny 1869.”

Media Options

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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

William H. Stewart [1820-1897], Philadelphia and Paris; (his estate sale, American Art Association, New York, 3-4 February 1898, 2nd day, no. 106); William A. Clark [1839-1925], New York; bequest 1926 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 2090); acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1972

  • To Look on Nature: European and American Landscape, 1800-1874. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, February 3 - March 5, 205-206, pl. 75.

1978

  • The William A. Clark Collection. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, April 26- July 17.

1989

  • The William A. Clark Collection: Treasures of a Copper King. Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT; Montana Historical Society, Helena, MT, 1989, p. 25, ill.

2003

  • Fortuny (1838-1874). Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2003, no. 70.

2017

  • Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 2017-2018.

Bibliography

1925

  • Carroll, Dana H. Catalogue of Objects of Fine Art and Other Properties at the Home of William Andrews Clark, 962 Fifth Avenue. Unpublished manuscript, 1925: pt. 1, 181, no. 196.

1928

  • Illustrated Handbook of The W. A. Clark Collection. Washington, DC, 1928: 42.

1932

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection. Washington, 1932: 44.

1971

  • Johnston, W. R. "W. H. Stewart, the American Patron of Mariano Fortuny," Gazette des Beaux Arts (March 1971): 184-188.

1982

  • Rosenthal, Donald A.. Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting 1800-1880. Exh. cat., Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 133, fig. 129.

1989

  • González López, Carlos, Montse Martí, and Juan Ainaud de Lasarte. Mariano Fortuny Marsal. Tomo I. in Maestros del Arte de los siglos XIX y XX. Barcelona, 1989: 288- 289, nos. 135, 135 bis (detail).

2008

  • Torres Gonzalez, Begona. Fortuny: un mundo en miniatura. Madrid, 2008: 286-287.

Inscriptions

lower right in watercolor: A M Stewart / son ami / Fortuny 1869

Wikidata ID

Q64595130


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