Bashi-Bazouk

Gérôme toured Egypt and Asia Minor from January 1 to April 13, 1868; his companions included Edmond About, who composed a novel about it (Le Fellah, 1869, dedicated to Gérôme), the journalist Frédéric Masson, the painter Léon Bonnat, and Gérôme's brother-in-law Albert Goupil, an amateur photographer. It is probable that he began work on this canvas in the months following his return to France.

"Bashi-Bazouks were irregular Turkish troops of the Ottoman Empire. They were not paid for their services, but lived from plunder, and were especially feared for their ferocity" (Ackerman 1986, p. 83). Bashi-bazouk is the transliteration of a Turkish term whose literal definition is "broken-head," a reference to the reckless behavior of these soldiers of fortune; but the term may be translated idiomatically as "headless," because this takes into account the fact that the soldiers were not bound by a strict or disciplined hierarchy. The model depicted in the present work is presumably dressed in souvenirs that Gérôme acquired abroad. He is shown bust-length, in a near-frontal position. Another, contemporary, treatment of the same subject by the artist, also in The Met (2008.547.1) exhibits equally unerring technical precision but is three times larger, and the figure is shown from behind. Gérôme employed different models for the respective pictures—the present one has the lighter complexion of the two—and their costumes and accessories differ in every respect save the extraordinary textile headpiece. The subject held obvious appeal throughout the nineteenth century: Gérôme included similar figures in a number of paintings, and an example by his close contemporary Charles Bargue, dated 1875, is also in the Museum’s collection (87.15.102).

The distinguished collector Samuel Putnam Avery bought the present painting in 1870, and he may have sold it about 1873, in the year he acquired the larger Bashi-Bazouk by Gérôme in the Museum's collection. Its next known owner was John Taylor Johnston, The Met's first president. It is notable that both canvases, and the Bashi-Bazouk by Bargue, were all in New York and Brooklyn collections in the 1870s, reflecting a taste for the refined and exotic at the start of the Gilded Age.

Asher Ethan Miller 2014

Inscription: Signed (lower right): J. L. GEROME

[Goupil, Paris, until 1870; stock. no. 5229, as "Bachi-Bouzouck (Tête)"; sold on August 25, 1870, for Fr 3,500 to George A. Lucas for Avery]; Samuel Putnam Avery, New York (from 1870); John Taylor Johnston, New York (until 1876; his sale, Chickering Hall, New York, December 19, 1876, no. 31, for $1,200 to Garrett); John W. Garrett, Baltimore (1876–d. 1884); his daughter, Mary E. Garrett (1884–d. 1915); her estate (1915–18; sale, American Art Association, New York, April 4, 1918, no. 9, for $160 to Blanck); Fred J. Blanck (from 1918); [Scott & Fowles, New York, possibly stock no. 227; to private collection, Florida]; private collection, Florida (in 1952; sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, January 23, 1952, no. 6, bought in); [Ira Spanierman, New York, until 1972; sold in October to Shepherd]; [Shepherd Gallery, New York, from 1972; sold to Lane]; Kenneth Jay Lane, New York (1972–88, sale, Sotheby's, New York, October 27, 1988, no. 55, to Fortabat); Mrs. Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, New York (1988–d. 2012; sale, Sotheby's, New York, April 24, 2009, no. 21, bought in; her estate, 2012–14; sale, Sotheby's, London, April 8, 2014, no. 6, to Lane); Kenneth Jay Lane, New York (2014)

Paris. Cercle de l'Union Artistique. "Exhibition of Cercle de l'Union Artistique," 1869 (possibly this picture) [see Ackerman 2000].

Doha. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. "Seeing Is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme," November 3, 2024–February 22, 2025.

George A. Lucas. Journal entry. August 13, 1870 [published in "The Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857–1909," transcribed and with an introduction by Lilian M. C. Randall, Princeton, 1979, vol. 2, p. 329], writes "At Goupils & saw head of Gerome".

George A. Lucas. Journal entry. August 22, 1870 [published in "The Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857–1909," transcribed and with an introduction by Lilian M. C. Randall, Princeton, 1979, vol. 2, p. 329], writes "At Goupils & ordered [...] Gerome [...] to be sent to Packers".

George A. Lucas. Journal entry. September 3, 1870 [published in "The Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857–1909," transcribed and with an introduction by Lilian M. C. Randall, Princeton, 1979, vol. 2, p. 330], writes "At Carpentiers & ordered frame for Gerome - At Pottiers for bill of packing Johnstons pictures" (possibly references to this work).

Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn]. The Art Treasures of America. Luxury ed. Philadelphia, [ca. 1880], vol. 3, pp. 75–76, 80, ill. p. 77 (sketch illustration), as "Bashi-Bazouk" in the text and as "Bashi-Bazouk Warrior" in the caption; calls it "one of the better class of Gérôme's studies of travel; a head modeled with exhaustive knowledge and skill, solid and real as any bronze, hard and rigid in its watchful immobility"; notes that the artist "has seldom represented in such scale and with such realism as here" "one of those high felt caps"; speaks disparagingly of bashi-bazouks, alluding to violent acts committed during the Bulgarian uprising of 1876: "the face clearly bespeaks the cruelties and atrocities which made the irresponsible Bashi-Bazouks, the mercenaries of the unspeakable Turk, to be so execrated during the late revolutions in the various Turkish dependencies of the Danube".

Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn], ed. The Art Treasures of America. Philadelphia, [1880], vol. 2, pp. 82–83, 86, ill. (reproductive drawing), calls it "Bashi-Bazouk" and locates it in the Garret collection.

"J. L. Gérôme in American Collections." The Collector 1 (September 1, 1890), p. 150, as "A Bashi Bazouk" in the J. W. Garrett estate, Baltimore.

Gerald M. Ackerman. The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, with a catalogue raisonné. London, 1986, pp. 78, 226–27, no. 192, ill. (bw), calls it "Bashi-Bazouk," dates it about 1869, and locates it in a private collection.

Gerald M. Ackerman. Jean-Léon Gérôme: Monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour. 2nd rev. ed. [1st ed., 1986]. Paris, 2000, pp. 272–73, no. 192, ill., calls it "Bachi-Bouzouk," dates it 1869, and locates it in a private collection.

Gary Tinterow and Asher Ethan Miller in The Wrightsman Pictures. Ed. Everett Fahy. New York, 2005, pp. 390, 392 n. 4, under no. 110.

Sebastian Smee. "A Masterpiece with a Complicated Afterlife." Washington Post (December 30, 2020) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/entertainment/jean-leon-gerome-bashi-bazouk/].

Dalila Meenen. "L'Orient américain: La figure de l'Amérindien entre transpositions iconographiques et discours impérialistes." Revue de l'art no. 22 (April 2023), pp. 28, 31 n. 36, notes that the painting would have been known to George de Forest Brush, as it was in American collections from the early 1870s on.

A photograph of the painting is mounted into the "Recueil; oeuvres de Jean-Léon Gérôme," vol. 14, no. 6, as "Bachi-Bouzouk"; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, inv. no. DC- 293 (A+, 14) -FT4. This is one of twenty-eight albums containing photographs of paintings by Gérôme presented by his widow to the library (see Ackerman 1986).