Jean-Léon Gérôme - Greek Slave [1870]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Greek Slave [1870], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

During the Franco-Prussian war (October 1870), an English journalist and an American journalist visited Gérôme's studio in Bougival. The American took away this unfinished painting, supposedly to deliver it to a lawyer, but instead apparently returning to Chicago with it. Later, Charles Gilman of Chicago recalled seeing the painting in an antique shop, where his friend M. P. Kennard of Boston had purchased it. When the Boston Museum of Fine Arts acquired it in 1887, Gérôme was flattered that the painting had been acquired by a museum and offered to sign it.

[Oil on canvas, 54 x 37.1 cm]