Gustave-Achille Guillaumet (1840-1887).

Tente faits avec 2 nattes unies et cousues [Arab camp].

Algeria, ca. 1861-1867.

Charcoal and white chalk on paper. 29 × 45 cm. Signed G. Guillaumet lower right. Inscribed by Guillaumet upper right: “tente faits avec 2 nattes unies et cousues”; on the verso: “60–90 / bleuté sans carte à cadre / Lundi matin …” (probably framer’s notes).

        This large drawing shows an Arab desert encampment, where a group of figures gather under a low tent built of mats and poles. The scene is rendered with swift charcoal lines, heightened with touches of white to suggest the play of shade against the glaring light of the Sahara. The figures are sketched with immediacy rather than detail, their gestures evoking the intimacy of daily life in the camp. An inscription in the artist’s hand describes the tent’s construction, underscoring his desire to record both atmosphere and observation. Created during Gustave-Achille Guillaumet’s travels in Algeria in the early 1860s, this work belongs to a rare group of on-the-spot drawings that later informed his studio paintings. Unlike many Orientalist contemporaries who sought spectacle, Guillaumet immersed himself deeply in Algerian life and is recognized for the sobriety, empathy, and authenticity of his vision; his extended stays among Arab communities gave him a rare, firsthand familiarity with their culture. Here, the viewer has the sensation of being present in the encampment itself. Larger and more fully realized than most of his field sketches, this sheet not only documents his working process but also reveals the qualities that made him one of the most distinctive interpreters of desert life in 19th-century French art.

Condition: slight foxing, otherwise in very good condition.