Detail of Jerusalem from the Environs by Frere in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2011

Jerusalem from the Environs

Artist: Charles-Théodore Frère (French, Paris 1814–1888 Paris)

Date: possibly 1881

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 29 1/2 x 43 1/2 in. (74.9 x 110.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Accession Number: 87.15.106

Gallery Label:

This painting is thought to have been exhibited by Frère at the Salon of 1881 as View of Jerusalem from the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Because the artist had not been to the Holy Land for twenty years—he last traveled there as part of Empress Eugénie’s retinue in 1861—the composition must be based on one or more earlier studies or photographs. Frère’s meticulous style derives from his training under the academician Léon Cogniet, whose ceiling decorations devoted to Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (Musée du Louvre, Paris) were completed two years before the younger painter’s first trip to Algeria, in 1837.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436418