Le Moufti, plate ten from Caravanne du Sultan à la Mecque
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 19.4 × 13.1 cm (7 11/16 × 5 3/16 in.); Plate: 20.4 × 13.5 cm (8 1/16 × 5 3/8 in.); Sheet: 26.3 × 21 cm (10 3/8 × 8 5/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
207702
Art Historical Context
**Le Moufti from *Caravanne du Sultan la Mecque*** in 1748 by French artist Joseph-Marie Vien, *Le Moufti* is the tenth plate in his evocative series *Caravanne Sultan à la Mecque capturing the grandeur of an imagined Ottoman pilgrimage to Mecca. Vien, a pivotal figure bridging Rococo elegance and emerging Neoclassicism, on 18th-century European fascination with the "Orient." This etching depicts the Mufti—a high Islamic legal authority—amid the caravan's exotic procession, blending observed details from travel accounts with artistic imagination to evoke mystery and splendor. Rendered as ...
About the Artist
Joseph Marie Vien, I · 1716–1809
Joseph-Marie Vien (1716–1809) was born in Montpellier and trained in Paris under Charles-Joseph Natoire. A brilliant student, he won the Prix de Rome in 1743 and spent the years 1744 to 1750 at the French Academy in Rome, where his encounter with the antiquarian scholarship of the Comte de Caylus and the early stirrings of neoclassical taste around the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii proved...