Alfred Dehodencq (23 April 1822 – 2 January 1882; born Edmé-Alexis-Alfred Dehodencq) is a French
Orientalist painter known for his vivid
oil paintings of
Andalusian and
North African scenes.
Life
Dehodencq was born in Paris on 23 April 1822. During his early years, Dehodencq studied in Paris at the
École des Beaux Arts under the tutelage of French artist
Leon Cogniet. During the
French Revolution of 1848 he was wounded in his right arm, and thereafter painted with his left hand. He was sent to convalesce in
Spain, where he remained for five years.[1] Dehodencq became acquainted with the works of Spanish painters
Diego Velázquez and
Francisco Goya, which had a strong influence on his approach to painting.
In 1853 he travelled to
Morocco, where for the following ten years he produced many of his most famous paintings depicting scenes of the world he encountered. Dehodencq was the first foreign artist known to have lived in Morocco for an extended number of years. He frequently drew and painted the Jews of Morocco. His painting A Jewish Woman with her Negro Maid (1867), as well as over 30 of his drawings, are in the collection of the
Israel Museum,
Jerusalem. While he considered himself to be the "Last of the
Romantics," his work is generally categorized with the mid-19th-century
Orientalist artistic movement.
In the 1860s, Dehodencq painted multiple versions of a work depicting the public execution of a young Jewish woman in Morocco, for the crime of converting to, and then renouncing, Islam; one of these paintings was exhibited at the
Paris Salon of 1861 under the title Exécution d'une juive, au Maroc. Some scholars say that Dehodencq was inspired by the story of
Sol Hachuel (beheaded in 1834 in
Fez),[2] but the artist's friend and biographer,
Gabriel Séailles, states explicitly, in two books, that Dehodencq was an eye-witness to the execution he depicted, which took place in Tangiers.[3][4]
Dehodencq married Maria Amelia Calderon in 1857 in
Cádiz, Spain. They had five children, three of whom (Emmanuel, Armand, and Marie) died as children, before their father.[5] Their son Edmond, born in Cádiz in 1862, was called the Mozart of painting because he debuted at the Paris Salon at age eleven.[6][7] At age 18 he sculpted the bust that later adorned his father's gravesite.
In 1863, after 15 years abroad, Dehodencq returned with this family to Paris. He was decorated with the
Legion of Honour in 1870. He committed suicide on 2 January 1882,[8] having been sick for a long time. He was buried in the
Montmartre Cemetery.
^While
Larousse says that Edmond was born in 1862, the
Musée Goya says he was born in 1860; the
Joconde site also says 1860, but appears to add a question mark.
Gotlieb, Matt (2009).
"Figures of Sublimity in Orientalist Painting" in Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 74, Symposium Papers LI: Dialogues in Art History, from Mesopotamian to Modern: Readings for a New Century; National Gallery of Art, 2009, pp. 316–341.
Hamel, Maurice.
"Alfred Dehodencq", Revue de l'art ancien et moderne, v. 28, no. 163, October, 1910, pp. 269–284.
Larousse, Pierre.
"Dehodencq" entries in Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle: français, historique, géographique, mythologique, bibliographique..., vol. 17, suppl. 2, 1866-1877, p. 1008.