Théodore Chassériau was a Dominican-born French Romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria. Early in his career he painted in a Neoclassical style close to that of his teacher Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but in his later works he was strongly influenced by the Romantic style of Eugène Delacroix. He was a prolific draftsman, and made a suite of prints to illustrate Shakespeare's Othello. The portrait he painted at the age of 15 of Prosper Marilhat makes Chassériau the youngest painter exhibited at the Louvre museum.
A self-portrait of Chassériau painted at the age of 16
The Toilette of Esther, 1841, oil on canvas, 45.5 x 35.5 cm, Paris, Louvre
Statue of painter Théodore Chassériau located in Santa Bárbara de Samaná
Vénus marine dite Vénus Anadyomène, 1838, Paris, Louvre
In art history, literature and cultural studies, orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle East, was one of the many specialties of 19th-century academic art, and Western literature was influenced by a similar interest in Oriental themes.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Snake Charmer, c. 1879. Clark Art Institute.
Eugène Delacroix, The Women of Algiers, 1834, the Louvre, Paris
Unknown Venetian artist, The Reception of the Ambassadors in Damascus, 1511, Louvre. The deer with antlers in the foreground is not known ever to have existed in the wild in Syria.
Professor G. A. Wallin (1811–1852), a Finnish explorer and orientalist, who was remembered for being one of the first Europeans to study and travel in the Middle East during the 1840s. Portrait of Wallin by R. W. Ekman, 1853.
