The Art Gallery at the Athenaeum contains one of America’s unique collections of 19th century American paintings. Each week we will feature a different work on this page. We hope educators will use this link as a tool to enrich their art curriculum. Vermonters and other citizens throughout the nation can now visit our gallery in this new, intimate, and informative way.
The text describing each painting was written by Mark D. Mitchell, Assistant Curator of Nineteenth-Century Art at the National Academy Museum. The digital images were prepared by Robert Jenks of Jenks Studio of Photography in St. Johnsbury, VT.
Please note that the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum prohibits the use of images from its collection in public exhibition, broadcast, electronic reproduction or publication in any form without prior written permission from the institution. If you would like to reproduce any of the Art Gallery images in any form, contact Irwin Gelber at 748-8291, extension 307.
Louis Emile Pinel de Grandchamp (1831-1894)
French Donkey Driver of Cairo, undated
OIL ON PAPER MOUNTED ON PANEL, 12 15/16 X 9 3/4 inches
Gift of Horace Fairbanks
The later nineteenth century was a period of rapid change and globalization, much like the present day. Many artists shared an interest in foreign cultures, but even among them Pinel de Grandchamp was unusual, spending fifteen years exploring the Orient beginning in 1849 at the age of eighteen. Much like his peers' portrayals of urban life in the Western world, Pinel de Grand-champ here portrays a young boy at work. By depicting a child, rather than an adult, the artist engaged the curiosity and empathy of his viewers for his foreign subject without also stirring fear.