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The Slipper Merchant
José Villegas Cordero1872
The Walters Art Museum
Baltimore, United States
In the dimly lit, richly colored interior of a North African shop, a turbaned merchant serves a customer seated on a divan. Kneeling in front is an attendant, and barely discernible in the background is a craftsman at work. To the left, a man smokes a hookah. Villegas has adopted a subject made popular by Mariano Fortuny, but rather than exploring light effects, he provides an almost overwhelmingly detailed array of bric-a-brac. Even the picture frame, custom-ordered for this painting, is inscribed in Naskh script: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet."
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Details
- Title: The Slipper Merchant
- Creator: José Villegas Cordero (Spanish, 1844-1921)
- Date Created: 1872
- External Link: For more information about this and thousands of other works of art in the Walters Art Museum collection, please visit art.thewalters.org
- Roles: Artist: José Villegas Cordero (Spanish, 1844-1921)
- Provenance: William T. Blodgett Sale, New York, 1876, no. 60; J. Pierpont Morgan, ca. 1879, by purchase; William T. Walters, Baltimore [before 1884, mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
- Object Type: oil paintings
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Inscriptions: [Signature] Lower left: Villegas; [Date] Lower left: 1872
- Exhibitions: Marvels and Mirages of Orientalism: Benjamin-Constant and His Time. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal. 2014-2015., From Rye to Raphael: The Walters Story. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2014-2016., L'Orientalisme, de Delacroix a Kandinsky. Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, Marseille. 2010-2011.
- Dimensions: H: 19 x W: 25 9/16 in. (48.3 x 65 cm); Framed H: 36 1/8 x W: 42 3/4 x D: 5 1/4 in. (91.76 x 108.59 x 13.34 cm)
- Credit Line: Acquired by William T. Walters before 1884
- Accession Number: 37.105
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