On the Nile, 1872

  • Sanford Robinson Gifford, American, 1823-1880

Oil on canvas

  • Overall: 17 × 31 inches (43.2 × 78.7 cm)

Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Associates of the American Wing Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, and Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Fund

2011.18

On View

  • American, Level 2, West

Department

American Art before 1950

On 1 January 1869 Sanford Robinson Gifford set out to tour the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. After a brief stay in Cairo, he boarded a dahabeah (double-masted sailing vessel) to traverse the Nile. His letters describe a picturesque panorama—animal caravans, men in colorful robes, women swathed in gold and gauze—but On the Nile, painted after his return to his New York studio, presents a deeply subjective impression of atmosphere and light. Relying on a small oil sketch, as well as his memory, Gifford composed his scene in three horizontal bands: shimmering water, parched land, and opalescent sky. The white sail of the felucca (sail boat) casts a luminous reflection on the river’s surface. Shunning any dramatic device or exotic cliché, Gifford captures the subtle and purely sensory experience of bright winter light shining through the dust-filled desert air. From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)

Signed and dated, lower right: S.R. Gifford 1872

the artist

J. I. or J. J. Nesmith (Brooklyn, New York, USA), by 1876

and until at least 1881

[with the dealer Victor D. Spark (New York, USA)

Douglas B. Collins (Longmeadow, Massachusetts, USA), by 1970

[with Vose Galleries (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), by 1972

Eugene B. Sydnor, Jr. (Richmond, Virginia, USA), by 1980, until at least 1987. [with Berry-Hill Galleries (New York, New York, USA) by 1995-96

Robert H. Burns (New York and Hong Kong), from c. 1996 until 2011

2011-present, purchased by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

“Art. The Brooklyn Association. Twenty-fifth Exhibition of Pictures.” New-York Daily Tribune (December 14, 1872): p. 4. A Memorial Catalogue of the Paintings of Sanford Robinson Gifford. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1881, no. 580. "Loan Collection of Paintings in the West and East Galleries," Handbook no. 6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 1880-March 1881, p. 4 cat. no. 8 [lent by J. I. Nesmith]. Cikovsky, Nikolai. Sanford Robinson Gifford, 1823-1880. Exh. cat., University of Texas Art Museum. Austin, 1970, p. 71 cat. no. 50 [lent by Douglas B. Collins]. Wilmerding, John, et. al. American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington D.C., 1980, p. 46 (fig. 39); p. 198 (pl. 22) [lent by Eugene B. Sydnor]. Thompson, D. Dodge. “American Artists in North Africa and the Middle East, 1797-1914.” Antiques 126 (August 1984): pp. 308, 310 (ill.). American Paintings IV. New York, 1986, pp. 32-33 (ill.). Avery, Kevin J. and Franklin Kelly, ed. Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford R. Gifford. New York, 2003, pp. 192-194 (ill.), cat. no. 48 [incorrectly dated 1871, lent from a Private Collection].

Sanford Robinson Gifford, On the Nile, 1872, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Associates of the American Wing Fund, et al., 2011.18.