Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema English( 1836-1912) born Netherlands Death of the Pharaoh’ s Firstborn Son 1872 oil on canvas 30 x 49” Salon 1874 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The painting represents to story of the last of the ten plague sent upon Egypt from the Book of Exodus, the death of the firstborn. While it appears in the catalogue to the Salon it is not found among the photos in the National Archive because it was not purchased by the state. The artist never wished to sell the painting but bequeathed it to the Rijksmuseum upon his passing.
It is even worse with the Salon catalogues, by and large. There are hundreds of artists and thousands of entries, but efforts to find the artists and then locate the corresponding work online typically come up empty. It might have been interesting to compare celebrated Salon works during the Impressionist period with ordinary ones in the various genres: big history paintings( France was a very Roman Catholic country, so there were lots of pictures of Bible subjects and saints, and lots of episodes from battles), portraits, nudes, landscapes, and still lives. If the artist could be found, the painting in the Salon often couldn’ t be, so I eventually had to give up the quest and settle for a few works from two pairs of exhibitions going on at the same time: The Salon of 1863 and the accompanying Salon des Refusés and, in 1874 the official Salon and the“ First Impressionist Exhibition.”
The catalogue of the Salon of 1863 had 2,923 entries, of which 2,127 were paintings. The total number of works in the Salon des Refusés is uncertain because the catalogue was incomplete, though one estimate is around 1500 entries. When it opened, members of the public came in large numbers; according to one report, as many as 4,000 on Sundays when admission was free. 5 A comparison is offered here between the most controversial picture and one of the most popular.
While many of the works in the“ Impressionist” show at photographer Nadar’ s studio in 1874 can’ t be found, a number of famous and much beloved paintings by Renoir, Pissarro, Monet, and others are well known. Several of these are offered, side by side, with major Salon works on view in Paris during the same time. The point to all this isn’ t to ask which art is“ better,” but rather to invite consideration over whether the Salon artists illustrated here were making“ Art” or should be justly relegated to the art-historical trash heap? Let the public decide by letting their works be seen. No?
1. https:// sites. google. com / a / plu. edu / paris-salon-exhibitions-1667-1880 / home The site was created by John S. Hallam. 2. https:// archive. org / details / cataloguesofpari1855acad 3. http:// www. culture. gouv. fr / documentation / archim / albumsdessalons. htm 4. http:// www. musee-orsay. fr / fr / collections / restaurations / restauration-du-remords-de-baader. html 5. https:// www. academia. edu / 3866463 / May _ 15 _ 1863 _ Paris _ s _ Salon _ des _ Refus % C3 % A9s _ Opens
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