Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
African Chief
Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (Spanish, 1838-1874)
1870
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 41 × 32.9 cm (16 1/8 × 12 15/16 in.); Framed: 68.6 × 61 × 8.9 cm (27 × 24 × 3 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- George F. Harding Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Although this appears to be a portrait rendered quickly from direct observation, it is in fact an imagined representation of an African chief. Working in Paris, Mariano Fortuny y Marsal referenced elements from different cultures to construct this fictional scene, which is based on sketches he made and objects he collected while traveling in North Africa. The figure carries items from that region, such as the kabyle musket slung across his shoulders and a haik, the white outer garment encircling his head, neck, and lower body. The pata (gauntlet sword) and powder flask hanging from his waist, however, are of Indian origin.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
