An Egyptian Feast
Edwin Long, 1877
An Egyptian Feast is an 1877 oil on canvas by British painter Edwin Long, an artist best known for his Orientalist and history subjects. It was shown at the Royal Academy's 1877 exhibition at Burlington House in London, where it won favour with both visitors and critics; the magazine John Bull called it the year's sensation picture. The work later entered the collection of the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, which acquired it in 1931. It belongs to the Orientalist current that flourished in nineteenth-century British painting, which staged scenes of the East with close attention to costume, interiors and everyday life, often filtered through a European gaze. The canvas is a useful window onto how Victorian audiences enjoyed images of Egypt conjured as elaborate theatre rather than as archaeological record.
- Painter
- Edwin Long
- Date
- 1877
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Museum
- Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford
- Movement
- Orientalist painting
More works by Edwin Long
