Les Portes de Fer
- Object:
- Place of origin:
Biban al-Hadid, Algeria (painted)
Kabilye, Algeria
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
Dauzats, born 1804 - died 1868 (painter)
- Materials and Techniques:
Watercolour touched with bodycolour
- Credit Line:
Purchased with the assistance of The Art Fund, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Shell International and the Friends of the V&A
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D, case 89, shelf SCX, box 10
- Download image
On 28 October 1839 Dauzats accompanied a division of the French army, consisting of 3,000 men, through the smaller of the two gorges, known as the Portes de Fer (Gates of Iron), which cut through the Jurjura mountains in Kabylie, Algeria. Their journey from Setif to Algiers was part of a wider French operation, led by the due d'Orleans, to establish political and military hegemony in Algeria.
Dauzats's composition makes full use of the dramatic potential of the scenery. The dark rock walls of the defile fill the picture space almost entirely, towering over the tiny figures of the soldiers, and creating a feeling of claustrophobia. The favourite romantic theme of the insignificance of man in the face of the mighty forces of nature is a recurrent one in Dauzats's work. He painted several views of the Portes de Fer in both oil and watercolour, including five that were reproduced for the Journal de l'Expedition des Partes de Fer (1841), compiled by the poet Charles Nodier. Powerful and atmospheric compositions such as these have established a significant place for Dauzats in the history of French Orientalism.
Physical description
A watercolour showing a detachment of the French Army passing through the defile called Les Portes de Fer near Kabilye in Algeria
Place of Origin
Biban al-Hadid, Algeria (painted)
Kabilye, Algeria
Date
1846 (painted)
Artist/maker
Dauzats, born 1804 - died 1868 (painter)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour touched with bodycolour
Marks and inscriptions
A.Dauzats. 1846 Bibans, and on the former mount with title and A:Dauzats. No.11.
A:Dauzats. No.11. Duc de Montpensier
Dimensions
Height: 24.3 cm, Width: 32.1 cm
Object history note
This object belonged to Rodney Searight who noted:- `Bt fr Valenti, April 1967....£20'. [It once belonged to the Duc de Montpensier.]
Historical context note
This is one of several views by Dauzats in oil and watercolour of one of the famous defiles, known as the Portes de Fer (Biban al-Hadid), cutting through the Jurjura mountains in Kabylie, Algeria. Five large watercolours were exhibited at the Salon in 1841 (472-476), including a version of SD301, Troisième muraille des Portes de Fer, no. 4 of the series; (all now at Versailles). Cf. also two watercolours in Mackinnon & Strachey, An Exhibition of English and French Drawings and Watercolours, 1983 (12 & 13) and Plates 167-71 in Nodier, 1844. Dauzats left Sétif on 25 October 1839 with a division of the French army. The 3000 men passed through La Petite Porte, the smaller of the two gorges, on 28 October, on their way to Algiers: see Nodier, 1844.
Descriptive line
Watercolour `Les Portes de Fer' [The Iron Gates], 1846, by Adrien Dauzats
Exhibition History
The East Imagined,
Experienced, Remembered Orientalist Nineteenth-Century Painting (Liverpool National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside 01/01/1988-31/12/1988)
A Middle Eastern Journey Artists on their travels from the collection of Rodney Searight (Edinburgh Talbot Rice Art Centre 01/01/1980-31/12/1980)
Materials
Watercolour
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Kabylie; Biban al-Hadid; Les Portes de Fer; Jurjura Mountains
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
