To all the lizard researchers

[Soliti Profile]

As far as the painting I am on the case....

Here is the list of ALL paintings in Mohommeds Kamel's Art Collection and location in the building. We just need to track down the painting now.

Also, having knowledge of the Art Field myself, these paintings are VERY rare and are priceless.

http://www.diplomaticclub.org/ShowPage. ... ID=86&li=2




The Egyptian Diplomatic Club houses a unique collection of nineteenth century French oil paintings, most of them generously donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey (1876 - 1953) and his French wife Emilienne Hector Luce. This contribution by the Khalil family to one of the most reputed social clubs in Cairo was made around the 1930s, complementing its refurbishment and enlargement phase.

It is considered one of the finest collections of nineteenth-century French orientalist paintings on display in Cairo, apart from those in the Museum of Mr. and Mrs. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil and those in Manial Palace. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil was an assiduous collector and genuine supporter of the art movement in Egypt. He and his friends laid the foundations of the Société des Amis de l’Art in 1920s, and in 1928 laid the actual foundation stones of the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art, which was officially inaugurated by King Fouad in 1931. He supervised the 1928 exhibition of French art in Cairo, where fifty-two works were displayed to the general public. In 1937 he participated in the Exposition France-Egypte, where French art works from collections in Egypt traveled to be exhibited in Paris.

This was organized under the auspices of the Association Française d’Action Artistique (formerly known as the Association Française d’Expansion et d’Echanges Artistiques) and was a great success. Khalil also persuaded King Farouk to establish an Egyptian pavilion in the grounds of the Venice Biennale in 1938, a move that paved the way for the international exhibition of contemporary Egyptian art.

Khalil’s dedication to the art world rewarded him with the title of Correspondant de l’Académie des Beaux Arts and the Grand Cordon de la Légion d’Honneur, as well as the Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro of Italy. Throughout his life he donated collections to several organizations, among them the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art and the Club Mohamed Ali, now the Egyptian Diplomatic Club.

The Club’s valuable art collection includes the work of several renowned French orientalist painters of the nineteenth century. It consists of sixteen oil paintings of varying sizes, on canvas or board, all reflecting the artists’ views and impressions of nineteenth-century Egypt. Their subjects include the busy, narrow streets of Cairo’s medieval center, the Nile and farmlands, and the grandeur and splendor of its ancient monuments. They express the almost fairytale fascination these painters felt for the mystic Orient, which gave this school of painting its name: “Orientalist”

“The Orient of the Belle Époque is sensual: glittering, sweet-smelling, enchanting. It is noble, yet hedonistic to the point of overkill, and deliriously seductive.” (From Wolf-Dieter Lemke’s illustrated book (Staging the Orient).

By the nineteenth century, the orientalist school of painters was well-established, and many artists had visited Turkey, North Africa, Egypt, and Palestine in search of new horizons. Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt in 1798, waves of artists depicted the General in heroic, quasi-divine, propaganda poses in front of iconic monuments; while others, who came with the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869, highlighted the celebrations mounted by Khedive Ismail. These spectacular festivities formed the apogee of the period; they provided artists with the sought after themes of grandeur and majesty, but in a novel setting. Among artists who experienced the Orient first hand were Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Léon Belly, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, and Narcisse Berchère.

Today, the orientalist collection at the Egyptian Diplomatic Club reflects the strong bond between Egypt and the world, a relationship that mirrors the core mission of Egyptian diplomacy since its establishment in the nineteenth century as the Diwan of Foreign Affairs. These orientalist paintings are perfectly suited to their surroundings, not just as valuable and beautiful objects for the admiration of Egyptian members and their foreign guests, but also as a testament to the historic events that led to the production of such refined art. They are part of Egypt’s history, documented, exhibited, and safeguarded by the Egyptian Diplomatic Club, under the auspices of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

Léon Belly
(1827–1877)
French academic painter, influenced by Decamps and Marilhat. Belly’s encounter with the orient was a tour through Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and the Red Sea. In the early 1850s and at the Grand Salon in Paris, he exhibited works depicting scenes from his excursions in Beirut and Cairo.

His style was characterized by an overall view of his subjects (mainly landscapes and genre paintings), but avoiding detail in his depictions of human beings and animals.

The CMA collection includes three of his paintings, depicting the fabric of society along the Nile banks, and a serene view of the Giza pyramids.

Léon Belly
The land of the Nile
Oil on canvas
100cm X 65cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dated 1859, lower right
First floor

Léon Belly
Camels resting on the Nile banks
Oil on canvas
92cm X 70cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dated 1862, lower right
First floor

Léon Belly
The pyramids
Oil on canvas
52cm X 37cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed, lower right
Second floor

Narcisse Berchère
(1819–1891)
French painter, engraver, and lithographer. In 1841 he exhibited at the Paris Salon, and in 1849–50 visited Egypt, Asia Minor, and Turkey. Six years later he traveled to Egypt with Gérôme, Belly, and Bartholdi, and was chosen by Ferdinand de Lesseps to paint and sketch for the Suez Canal Company. In 1869 he returned to Egypt to attend the Suez Canal inauguration. His fascination with the orient was endless; he captured the Nile banks, the desert, medieval architecture, and landscapes. His paintings are vibrant in color with special attention to the contrast between light and shade.

Narcisse Berchère
Along the banks of the Nile
Oil on canvas
95cm X 86cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Second floor

Narcisse Berchère
A monumental Mamluk complex
Oil on canvas
40cm X 61cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dated 1878, lower right
Second floor

Louis Amable Crapelet
(1822–1867)
French orientalist painter. He visited Egypt, Turkey, North Africa, and Palestine in his prime. He excelled in depicting vibrant secular scenes from Cairo and Istanbul; some of his sketches and watercolor paintings are in the Louvre. He was fascinated by the medieval style of living and the landscape, and was influenced by master orientalist painters.

Louis Amable Crapelet
A busy area in Cairo
Oil on board
35cm X 27cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed, lower right
Second floor

Charles-Théodore Frère
(1814–1888)
One of the first French artists to commit himself to orientalist themes. He was born into a family of artists (his older brother, Pierre-Édouard Frère, was an established genre painter in Paris). Shortly after beginning his studies under Jean-Léon Cogniet and Camille Roqueplan, he moved to the countryside to capture the landscapes. Soon after, he left for Algeria, where his views of Algerian landscapes and people were exhibited at the Salon of 1850.

Frère does not tell us what inspired him - perhaps he was attracted by pictures of Oriental scenery in the Salon - but says only that he was strongly drawn to the sun, and that in search of it he went to Algeria (see Clarence Cook, Art and Artists of Our Time, 1888).

Frère traveled through Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and Syria, around 1854. He spent several years in Egypt and established his own studio in Cairo. He was among the artists who accompanied the Empress Eugénie to the Orient, where he produced an album of watercolors. He received a second-class medal in 1848 and a first-class award in 1865 for “Café de Galata à Constantinople” and “L’Île de Philae - Nubia.” He also received the medal of Officier de l’Ordre du Medjidieh de Turquie and became a member of the Société des Artistes Français.

Charles-Théodore Frère
Looking across the Nile banks
Oil on canvas
47cm X 33cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Second floor

Jean-Léon Gérôme
(1834–1904)
Prominent French painter and sculptor. He was apprenticed under Delaroche and Gleyre, and completed his studies at the École des Beaux Arts.

In 1847, he exhibited at the Paris Salon, where his painting “The cock fight” won third prize. This exposure marked the beginning of a series of official commissions. He traveled to Egypt in 1856, in preparation for exhibiting at the 1857 Salon. Among his paintings at the Salon were “Egyptian recruits crossing the desert,” “Memnon and Sesostris,” and “Camels watering.” Gérôme’s paintings were described by the French poet and critic Théophile Gautier as a “fresh view of the Near East.” This was the start of Gérôme’s career as a “peintre ethnographique” or orientalist painter.

In 1861, he visited Egypt for the second time and made several trips inside the country, sketching and developing single figure drawings or details of oriental settings. On returning to his studio in Paris, he developed models (costumed figures, vases, arms, etc.) to be used alone or as part of larger compositions.

Gérôme became a professor at the École des Beaux Arts, was upgraded from a Chevalier to an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1867, and soon became one of the prominent painters invited to the Suez Canal celebrations in 1869. Gérôme is known as an academic-historical painter, as well as a romantic one.

The Egyptian Diplomatic Club’s “Bonaparte before the Sphinx” is one of several art works by Gérôme depicting Napoleon in Egypt. Another version of the same theme is in the Hearst Castle Museum in California. The Diplomatic Club’s painting still has its original frame, which bears the label of the framer: Carpentier, Rue Fontaine 16 Bis, Paris. Inscribed at the bottom right, under the signature Gérôme, is a dedication to “Fauré Lepage.” Fauré Lepage was a renowned manufacturer of high quality arms and armor. Their products, which included magnificent duelling pistols and hunting rifles, were considered works of art as much as firearms, and among their select and privileged clientele were members of the artistic community in Paris. Gérôme was fascinated by Middle Eastern arms and armor and depicted shields, helmets, and pistols with loving detail in many of his paintings.

Jean-Leon Gérôme
Napoleon before the Sphinx
Oil on canvas
45cm X 29cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dedicated, lower right
First floor

Godefroy de Hagemann
(1820–1877)
French painter. Born in Naples, he was apprenticed there to Filippo Palizzi, and it was in Naples that he first exhibited his works. In 1861 he exhibited in Nantes (western France) and at the Paris Salon in 1872. He traveled to Asia, North Africa, and Egypt and became fascinated by the Orient. He produced several paintings of Cairo’s busy streets, markets, and alleys, and was known to have been captivated by the city. He died in Paris in 1877.

Godefroy de Hagemann
A busy street in Cairo
Oil on canvas
48cm X 57cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dated 1875, lower left
Second floor

Prosper Marilhat
(1811–1847)
French academic painter. He traveled to Egypt, Syria, and Palestine in 1831. While residing in Cairo he painted portraits, including one of the Mohamed Ali Pasha; he became known as a passionate orientalist painter. When he returned to Paris in 1833, he exhibited at the Salon. His style was characterized by vibrant colors, chiaroscuro, and detailed genre scenes. The Club’s collection includes two of Marilhat’s few oil paintings, one on board, the other on canvas.

Prosper Marilhat
Along the banks of the Nile
Oil on board
102cm X 66cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed, lower right
Second floor

Prosper Marilhat
A village scene
Oil on canvas
42cm X 34cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed, lower left
Second floor

Louis Claude Mouchot
(1830–1891)
French painter. Mouchot studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and was later apprenticed under the orientalist painter Léon Belly, with whom he traveled to Egypt in 1857. His works were exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1859. The club displays three of his paintings, reflecting his fascination with the Islamic monuments of Cairo, and the Nile. His paintings are beautifully balanced compositions combining architectural elements with busy street scenes in the heart of Cairo. In one, Mouchot has captured a general view of the fifteenth-century complex of the Mamluk Sultan Qaitbay, while in another he highlights fascinating architectural structures and decorative elements such as a semicircular sabil kuttab, carved wooden mashrabiya screens, and monumental entrance portals in dual-colored bands of ashlar.

Louis Claude Mouchot
The Complex of Qaitbay at the Cemeteries
Oil on canvas
96cm X 127cm
Signed and dated 1863, lower right
Second floor

Louis Claude Mouchot
A ride along the Nile
Oil on board
54cm X 37cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed and dated 1866, lower right
Second floor

Louis Claude Mouchot
A busy street in Cairo
Oil on canvas
100cm X 127cm
Signed and dated 1865, lower right
Second floor

Paul Dominique Philippoteaux
(1846–1923)
Son of the renowned Felix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1815–1884) a French painter and illustrator who specialized in battle and oriental scenes. He may have made use of his father’s sketches in some of his orientalist paintings. Paul worked and was apprenticed under Alexandre Cabanel and Léon Cogniet, and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1866 and 1867.

He traveled to New Orleans in 1885, where he won several commissions, among them a 360-degree cyclorama of the battle of Gettysburg, which measured about 112 meters long and six and a half meters high.
As a panoramic painter, Philippoteaux was interested in the realism of his paintings, down to minute details of the figures, such as their clothes, gestures, and facial expressions, which he assembled in lively compositions.

Paul Dominique Philippoteaux
The snake charmer
Oil on canvas
127cm X 96cm
Signed, lower right
First floor

Charles-Émile Vacher de Tournemine
(1812–1872)
French landscape painter from an aristocratic family. He served in the navy, which gave him the opportunity to visit countries such as the Balkans, Turkey, North Africa, and Egypt. He left the navy in 1840 and dedicated himself to orientalist paintings. As keeper of the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, he was responsible for the protection of French national treasures. As a painter he ranks with Marilhat, Edouard Frère and even Fromentin.

Charles-Émile Vacher de Tournemine
Camel transport across the Nile
Oil on canvas
126cm X 73cm
Donated by Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Bey
Signed, lower left
First floor

Thank you for your efforts and please keep it up!!!! The painting is in the foreign ministry in ciaro and I cannot find there list for there art work anywhere. I will update on my finds.

On another note, for the Bedouin believers ,here are my 2 main points to debunk that theory, I could research more on the Bedouin tribes but I am focusing on who painted this so I can find the whole painting.

1. Bedouin are a muslim nomadic tribe.. which we all know they dont like there woman to show skin....
I see skin and clevege in the painting.




2. black is not the tradition for there weddings its all about the color and any expose skin is usually covered in henna tattoo's..I see no color nor henna...

The pic below is the dress for there weddings




I can only see two people in this painting one female and one male with a unusual long neck and for the third person I cannot see it at all. It looks to me to be painted by a eropean in the 19th century.
I am courius on what the third person with a bad comb over looks like what the back ground represents from the sky, bookcase to the cat looking into a well lit hole and the vase and the omnious looking people with their stants. .. what is the purpose of this painting?

[Ohzehgermans Profile]

Thank you for your efforts and please keep it up!!!! The painting is in the foreign ministry in ciaro and I cannot find there list for there art work anywhere. I will update on my finds.

I can only see two people in this painting one female and one male with a unusual long neck and for the third person I cannot see it at all. It looks to me to be painted by a eropean in the 19th century.
I am courius on what the third person with a bad comb over looks like what the back ground represents from the sky, bookcase to the cat looking into a well lit hole and the vase and the omnious looking people with their stants. .. what is the purpose of this painting?

Now that you mention it... it truly looks like a cat in the bottom right corner.
And you also mentioned everything that my poor english wasn't able to describe. Thank you for that!
I'm thinking that there is more to the painting than some of us might think first.
It would be awesome if this could be found as a whole or even be photographed for us to examine closer.
...but i doubt that will happen... Such a shame!
Nonetheless... if we are right with our suggestions - it would be changing my point of view. And maybe that of others too. I'm a bit sceptic about a lotta stuff - but on the other side my horizon is very wide and ready to be filled with knowledge. We all should seek for knowledge.

[Soliti Profile]

Thank you for your efforts and please keep it up!!!! The painting is in the foreign ministry in ciaro and I cannot find there list for there art work anywhere. I will update on my finds.

I can only see two people in this painting one female and one male with a unusual long neck and for the third person I cannot see it at all. It looks to me to be painted by a eropean in the 19th century.
I am courius on what the third person with a bad comb over looks like what the back ground represents from the sky, bookcase to the cat looking into a well lit hole and the vase and the omnious looking people with their stants. .. what is the purpose of this painting?

Now that you mention it... it truly looks like a cat in the bottom right corner.
And you also mentioned everything that my poor english wasn't able to describe. Thank you for that!
I'm thinking that there is more to the painting than some of us might think first.
It would be awesome if this could be found as a whole or even be photographed for us to examine closer.
...but i doubt that will happen... Such a shame!
Nonetheless... if we are right with our suggestions - it would be changing my point of view. And maybe that of others too. I'm a bit sceptic about a lotta stuff - but on the other side my horizon is very wide and ready to be filled with knowledge. We all should seek for knowledge.

I have spent two days straight trying to find this painting in a whole with no luck and I find that strange. I think there is more to this painting as its the odd one out, many paintings that are in this building I have found but this one.
now I am talking with the National Gallery and others to help out, not holding my breath.... I know there are some here that are smart and know different ways to find out and I hope they will find this post.