Middle East Costumes, Egypt
May 14, 1878
Medium
Oil on card
Dimensions
25.4 × 22.9 cm (10 × 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
210176
Art Historical Context
Lockwood de Forest’s “Middle East Costumes, Egypt,” painted on May 14, 1878, is a compact oil study on card measuring just 25.4 by 22.9 centimeters. Housed in the Prints and Drawings department at the Art Institute of Chicago, the work belongs to a long tradition of artists using portable supports to record what they saw while traveling. Oil on card allowed de Forest to carry colors and brushes easily, producing quick yet richly hued notes that could later inform larger studio paintings or designs. The title points to an interest in regional dress, a common subject for nineteenth-century West...
About the Artist
Lockwood de Forest · 1850–1932
American painter, interior designer and furniture designer. A key figure in the Aesthetic Movement, he introduced the East Indian craft revival to Gilded Age America. His father was Henry Grant de Forest, and his son worked professionally as Lockwood de Forest, Jr., though the son's birth name is Lockwood de Forest, III.