Alfred Dehodencq, 1822 - 1882
Le Hajj
Oil on canvas
85.5 by 120cm., 33¾ by 47¼in.
Private collection
Dehodencq's large and lavish rendition of the annual Hajj (pilgrimage) en route to Mecca is an especially magnificent and wonderfully detailed painting of the subject by a Western artist. The landscape is not specific, but the shoreline might suggest a location on the Red Sea, south of Aqaba. At the centre of the enfilade of dignitaries, janissaries, soldiers, and musicians and mounted on the leading camel is the holy mahmal, the elaborate coffer containing the Koran that accompanies the pilgrims to Mecca. More on this painting
Alfred Dehodencq (23 April 1822 – 2 January 1882) was a mid-19th-century French Orientalist painter born in Paris. He was known for his vivid oil paintings, especially of Andalusian and North African scenes.
Alfred Dehodencq
Les premières communiantes/ Fisrt Comminion
Oil on canvas
54 x 81 cm
Private collection
After studying with Léon Cogniet at the Paris School of Fine Arts, he began to exhibit religious and genre paintings. The revolution of 1848 and his horror at seeing victims lying dead in the streets inspired him to paint La Nuit du 23 février (The Night of 23 February). These events, in which he was wounded, made him aware of the power of turbulent, angry crowds.
Alfred Dehodencq
The arrest of Charlotte Corday after the murder of Marat (July 13, 1793), c. 1853
Oil on canvas
H. 137.0; L. 100.0 cm.
French Revolution museum, Vizille, France
Originally a doctor, Marat founded the journal L’Ami du Peuple in 1789, and its fiery criticism of those in power was a contributing factor to the bloody turn of the Revolution in 1792. With the arrest of the king in August of that year, Marat was elected as a deputy of Paris to the Convention. In France’s revolutionary legislature, Marat opposed the Girondists–a faction made up of moderate republicans who advocated a constitutional government and continental war.
By 1793, Charlotte Corday, the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat and an ally of the Girondists in Normandy, came to regard Marat as the unholy enemy of France and plotted his assassination. Leaving her native Caen for Paris, she had planned to kill Marat at the Bastille Day parade on July 14 but was forced to seek him out in his home when the festivities were canceled. On July 13, she gained an audience with Marat by promising to betray the Caen Girondists. Marat, who had a persistent skin disease, was working as usual in his bath when Corday pulled a knife from her bodice and stabbed him in his chest. He died almost immediately, and Corday waited calmly for the police to come and arrest her. She was guillotined four days later. More on this painting
Sent to convalesce in the Pyrenees, he went on to Madrid, where he was impressed by the work of Velåsquez and, more importantly, Goya, who influenced his work. During this long stay in Spain, he painted a number of oils that showed Spanish life as heroic, sanguine, devout and fanatic.
Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882)
A Gypsy Dance in the Gardens of the Alcázar, in front of Charles V Pavilion, c. 1851
Oil on canvas
Height: 111.5 cm (43.8 in); Width: 161.5 cm (63.5 in)
Carmen Thyssen Museum
Alfred Dehodencq
A brotherhood passing through Genova street, Seville, c. 1851
Oil on canvas
111.5 x 161.5 cm
Carmen Thyssen Museum
Dehodencq arrived in Seville in November 1850, and immediately entered the service of the Duke of Montpensier, who ordered him to make, as his first commission, “two quite large paintings that would highlight: one, the religious aspect, and the other , the voluptuous of Spain ”, which the artist materialized in the two most genuine and typical popular manifestations –apparently antagonistic but actually complementary– of Andalusian character: Holy Week and flamenco dance (See above).
Alfred Dehodencq (1822-1882)
King Boabdil Bids Farewell to Granada, Circa 1869
Oil on Canvas
H. 377; W. 275 cm
Paris, musée d'Orsay
Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII ((c. 1460–1533), known in Europe as Boabdil (a Spanish rendering of the name Abu Abdillah), was the 22nd and last Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Iberia.
In 1491, Muhammad XII was summoned by Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon to surrender the city of Granada, which was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on 2 January 1492, Granada was surrendered.
Legend has it that as Muhammad XII went into exile, he reached a rocky prominence which gave a last view of the city. Here he reined in his horse and viewed for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below. The place where this allegedly took place is today known as the Suspiro del Moro, "the Moor's sigh". Muhammad mourned his loss, and continued his journey to exile accompanied by his mother. More on Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII
In 1853, Dehodencq discovered Morocco; Tangiers, Tetuan, Mogador, Rabat, Salé. "It nearly drove me out of my senses !" he cried on first seeing this country with which he was to be so passionately involved. From 1854 until his return to France in 1863, he divided his time between Cadiz, with his Spanish wife and children, and Tangiers.
Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882)
Jewish holiday in Tetouan (or Jewish musicians in Tetouan), c. 1865
Oil on canvas
H. 120 - L. 90 cm
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme
Scene representing a procession led by Jewish musicians in a street in Tetouan. On the left side are crowded children. To the right in the upper half, women contemplate the parade from the top of their balconies.
This is an annual procession of Jews from Tetouan, authorized to roam the streets in memory of a service rendered. The procession preceded by two musicians, crosses the main street of the mellah, of which we can see the door at the back. More on this painting
Alfred Dehodencq
The Dance of the Negroes in Tangier, between 1822 and 1882
152 x 202 cm
Oil on canvas
Orsay museum, Paris, France
Alfred Dehodencq
A dance for the Sultan
Oil on panel
9¾ x 13¼ in. (24.8 x 33.8 cm.)
Private collection
During these nine years in North Africa, he made endless, brilliantly executed sketches, frenzied whorls that capture the movement of teeming life in Moroccan streets. He used individual studies of each detail to carefully build up his painted compositions. In many of these, exaggerated gestures and facial expressions, together with an often repeated trick of figures staring out at the spectator, give a caricatural aspect.
Alfred Dehodencq
The Moroccan storyteller
Oil on canvas
28 7/8 x 23 5/8 in
Private collection
Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882)
Moroccan storyteller, c. 1877
146 x 110 cm
Oil on canvas
Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, Paris
A black man wearing amulets, holding a lute, sings in front of a half-open door through which comes out a family made up of three women, a girl and two boys.
Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882)
Execution of a Moroccan Jewess
Oil on canvas
H. 62.2 - L. 44.5
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme
A bustling crowd of men are grouped around a platform on which a kneeling woman, hands tied behind her back, watches her executioner armed with a scimitar, ready to execute her.
Alfred Dehodencq (1822–1882)
La Justice du Pacha/ The Pasha 's Justice, c. 1866
Oil on canvas
162 x 132 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts Salies
The architectural partition in the background closes in on the viewer who is trapped in a closed door with two narrow exits, suggested by the painter. He finds himself confronted with an everyday scene.
The transition between the spectator and this eventful scene is carried out with the help of the slippers and the cane thrown in front of us. These objects are a bridge thrown between the visitor and the protagonists caught in their distress (the old woman's tearful gaze, the heaviness of the prisoner's body caused by the weight of his faults?
The tragic side of the scene is reinforced by a composition of diagonals and inverted triangle. Several preparatory drawings for this canvas are kept at the Algiers Museum, the Louvre and in private collections. Dehodencq considered himself the last of the romantics. But despite his taste for movement, drama, violence, the care he took in rendering every face, and the painstaking precision of every character in crowd scenes rank him among mid-century realists. More on this painting
Alfred Dehodencq
Le Supplice des Voleurs/ The Thieves' Punishment
Oil on canvas
32¾ x 44 in. (83.2 x 101.8 cm.)
Private collection
Dehodencq's strident and brutal colours, with a heavy use of black, echo the violence of his subjects: L 'Exécution de la Juive (Execution of the Jewess) (See above), La Justice du Pacha (The Pasha 's Justice) (Musée Saliés, Bagneres-de-Bigorre) (See above), Le Supplice des Voleurs (The Thieves' Punishment) (See above), Arrestation d'un Juif å Tanger (Arresting of a Jew in Tangiers) and Bastonnade å la Kasbah (Bastinado in the Casbah).
Alfred Dehodencq
The abduction of a Jewish Woman
Oil on canvas
146.50 x 111 cm (57.68 x 43.70 in.)
Private collection
This work reflects the oppressive context suffered by Moroccan Jews in the middle of the 19th century. A young Jewish woman is kidnapped by two men while her parents painfully follow along, screaming their pain to be released. The expressions are beautifully rendered by the artist on the canvas. The piercing eye and hateful air of the man oppose the palpable despair of the young woman. The deep, brutal subject is treated with virtuosity by the artist, making this imposing painting an exceptional piece of painting. A preparatory drawing for this work is kept at the Louvre. More on this painting
Although the paintings he had sent from Morocco for exhibition at the Paris Salon had been well received, Dehodencq did not know how to exploit this success. After his return to France, he found that his long absence had pushed him to the fringe of current art movements. He continued to paint Orientalist subjects, but even his moving picture of the last king of Granada, Les Adieux de Boabdil (Boabdil's Farewell) (on loan; Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing), was treated with indifference. He turned to more popular themes, sentimental paintings of children and narrative genre scenes but, in poverty and despair, he committed suicide. Although Dehodencq had no great influence on his contemporaries, he was the first artist to pay more than a short visit to Morocco. Not only that, his drawings are amongst the most remarkable of the nineteeth century. The first people to rediscover and collect his work were Monsieur and Madame Alexandre Popoff, owners of a Paris gallery. Their collection was later sold in various auctions. More on Alfred Dehodencq
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