Lot 40: Charles Bargue (French, 1826-1883)

Study for 'A Bashi-Bazouk'
signed and dated 'BARGUE. 75' (lower right)
oil on canvas
18 x 12 in. (45.7 x 30.5 cm.)
Painted in 1875

Charles Bargue was a contemporary and collaborator of Jean-Léon Gérôme, though he is often incorrectly described as the latter's student. Bargue made his living primarily as a lithographer. Because he painted only during the last decade of his life, and completed no more than two pictures a year, his oil paintings are few in number. It is in fact believed that he executed no more than twenty paintings in all. Bargue shared Gérôme's fascination with Orientalist subjects during the 1870s, the two artists shared a studio in Paris. Bargue would borrow costumes and props acquired by Gérôme during his travels to Egypt, Turkey, and the Middle East.

The subject of the present work is a bashi-bazouk (in Turkish, basibozuk, meaning leaderless) who were the irregular mounted mercenary soldiers of the Ottoman army. The bashi-bazouk were notorious for being brutal and undisciplined. They were recruited from the homeless, vagrants, criminals, slaves and prisoners of war. Foreign mercenaries and volunteers could also be hired to the corps. These soldiers became a favorite subject matter of Orientalist painters mainly for their fantastically colorful and delicate costumes juxtaposed with their brutish outer appearances.

The present work is a final study for the famous painting titled A Bashi-Bazouk in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's permanent collection (fig. 1). This final version was bequeathed to the museum by Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, the New York tobacco heiress, in 1887.

(fig. 1) Charles Bargue, A Bashi-Bazouk, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1875.