Oil painting, 'Oriental Landscape with Caravan', François Antoine Bossuet, 1870s

A caravan passing through an Islamic gate in ruins in a wide open landscape bathed in a Mediterranean sunlight.

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon, 1886
Ref: Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, (Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990), p.xx.
Joshua Dixon (1811-1885), was the son of Abraham Dixon of Whitehaven and brother of George Dixon (who was head of the foreign merchants firm of Rabone Brothers in Birmingham 1883-98). Educated at Leeds Grammar School, and was deputy chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company 1869-70. Died Winslade, near Exeter, 7 December 1885. Bequeathed all his collection of drawings, watercolours and oil paintings to the Bethnal Green Museum; they have since been transferred to the V&A. He also collected engravings, Japanese vases and panels, and bronze and marble sculpture.

Historical significance: This landscape probably depicts Morocco, which Bossuet visited several times. It is a typical example of his view paintings, a genre in which he specialised from early in his career, drawing inspiration from his travels.

The present work shows a Moorish gate in ruins with a caravan passing through before an open landscape bathed in Mediterranean sunlight. Bossuet was particularly interested in the rendering of light and utilised a light palette in his Mediterranean landscapes. The Moorish gate reappears in other compositions such as A Moorish gateway, sold Sotheby's London, 18 Jun. 1980, lot 186, and A Moorish gate, sold Slot Rosenstein, Stuttgart, 26 Oct. 1920, lot 32.

François Antoine Bossuet (1798-1889) was born in Ypres and trained in the Brussels Academy, where he became a teacher in 1855. He wrote a treatise on perspective in 1843 and was famous for his view paintings, especially of Italy and Spain.He was the teacher of Jean-Baptiste Van Moer (1819-1884) and François Etienne Musin (1820-1888).

The artistic relationship between the Northern and Southern Netherlands, now modern-day Holland and Belgium was strengthened by the proclamation of the Kingdom of Netherlands in 1815. The Prix de Rome was awarded equally to artists from Antwerp and Amsterdam, even after the independence of Belgium in 1830, and the great tradition of the Golden Age remained vivid. Much Belgian art of the first half of the 19th century articulates a new national pride, while nevertheless drawing on French academic taste. In search of a greater realism, painters sought new surroundings, especially in Paris and Italy, but also as far afield as Morocco.

François Antoine Bossuet (1798-1889) was born in Ypres and trained in the Brussels Academy where he became a teacher in 1855. He wrote a perspective treatise in 1843 and was famous for his 'vedute' paintings especially from Italy and Spain.
Bossuet was the teacher of Jean-Baptiste Van Moer (1819-1884), another famous vedute artist, and François Etienne Musin (1820-1888).

This landscape was probably executed in Morocco where Bossuet travelled several times in his life. These pictures witness the artist's research for new areas of interests such as the Northern Africa that provided him with exotic subject matter while allowing him to pursue his study of the pictorial rendering of light in the open air.

1069-1886