Engraving By Jean Pierre Marie Jazet, "wild Boar Hunting In The Sahara Plain" (1835)

After Horace Vernet (1789-1863), author of the eponymous painting and the drawing for the engraving. Aquatint, etching, and mezzotint, image size 60 x 82.5 cm. In a very fine period frame of partially stained lemonwood, retaining its original glass. A rare and precious deluxe version of this engraving, enriched in color by the aquatint. This sumptuous romantic evocation of hunting scenes in the very first French Algeria, that of its heroic beginnings, is not actually set in the Sahara, but in the Mitidja plain, the hinterland of Algiers, very close to Algiers and Boufarik. It was probably for the sake of publishing convenience and for a public still largely unfamiliar with Algerian topography that the term "Sahara" was chosen by the publisher of the engraving, Goupil, Vibert & Cie, but it is impossible to place the scene anywhere other than in the Mitidja plain, if only because of the small amount of Algerian territory then conquered by France. As early as 1833, although the conquest had only begun in 1830, Horace Vernet, official painter to King Louis Philippe, acquired a property in the wilaya of Blida, near Boufarik. It was not far from there that Vernet, famous for his depictions of wildlife, hunted. Specifically at Réghaia, the estate of a certain Mercier, or on land acquired in the region by Baron de Vialar. Here we see a scene likely witnessed by the artist, depicting French officers and horsemen from Arab or Berber tribes allied with France, engaged in a fierce boar hunt, typical of those epic times. The composition adopted here by Vernet, a true Romantic genius, was so famous in his own time that the painter Raden Syarif Bastaman Saleh (Semarang, Indonesia, 1811 or 1814 – Bogor, Indonesia, 1880) adopted it as early as 1844 for his painting "The Hunt for the Wild Bull (Bateng)." This painting, as we recall, sold for 8.8 million euros in 2018. It has since become a true icon of Orientalism. Horace Vernet would remain under Napoleon III a celebrated painter to the point of receiving the Grand Officer's Cross of the Legion of Honour from the Emperor who had learned in 1862 that he was very ill and had it delivered to him at his home.