Mounted Mameluke Chieftain Calling for Aid
Medium
Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 31.9 × 23.3 cm (12 9/16 × 9 3/16 in.); Sheet: 43.6 × 29.9 cm (17 3/16 × 11 13/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
9559
Art Historical Context
Baron Antoine Jean Gros created this dynamic lithograph in 1817, capturing a mounted Mameluke chieftain in a moment of urgent appeal. A leading figure in early French Romanticism, Gros was renowned for his dramatic depictions of Napoleonic campaigns, particularly those set in Egypt and the Middle East. The subject reflects the era’s fascination with the exotic and heroic, drawing on the Mamelukes’ role as formidable cavalry warriors during Napoleon’s 1798–1801 Egyptian expedition. Printed in rich black ink on cream wove paper, the work exemplifies lithography’s revolutionary potential in the ...
About the Artist
Baron Antoine Jean Gros · 1771–1835
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros (1771–1835) was born in Paris to the miniature painter Jean-Antoine Gros and the artist Pierrette-Madeleine-Cécile Durand. Displaying prodigious talent from childhood, he began drawing under his father's tutelage at age six. In 1785, at just fourteen, Gros entered the studio of Jacques-Louis David, the preeminent Neoclassical master, while attending classes at the Collège M...