The Sultan's Tiger
Benjamin-Constant (Jean-Joseph-Benjamin Constant) French
Not on view
This painting appears to have been inspired by Victor Hugo’s 1827 poem “La Douleur du pacha” (The Pasha’s Grief). In the poem, a fictional Ottoman potentate forsakes his responsibilities, including his domains and his subjects, owing to implacable sadness: “What’s wrong with this pasha, whom war is calling / And who, sad and dreamy, cries like a woman? . . . / His Nubian tiger has died.”
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