02 Paintings by Orientalist Artists, Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert, with footnotes, #95

The present works represents a scene common in Egypt during the nineteenth century, when young men from the villages were conscripted into the army of the Khalif, a process which dated back to the first attempt by Mohammed Ali Pasha, to build up a regular army in 1824. As seen in the paintings, the recruits trudge across the desert, escorted by the Arnaut guard, and challenge the heat and wind making their journey long and painful…

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