Page 14 - Orient Collection

1. The SIMOON, the hot blowing wind of the desert (Egypt)

Artist: Ludwig Hans. FISCHER, Austrian, (1848 - 1915)
Execution date (approximate): 1878
Téchnique: Oil on canvas, (Signed lower left)
Measures: 175.9 x 116.8 cm.
Description: In this painting by FISCHER, it is the dry season and the dreaded Simoon (or
Khamsin, one of the many word in Arabic to describe Sandstorms); a testament of the
tumultuous seasons in Egypt. A caravan crossing in front of the Sphinx. The picture of
men battling through a storm, accompanied by their distressed sheep and alone donkey,
is uncomfortably realistic.

Exhibitions
De Delacroix A Kandinsky, L’orientalisme En Europe.
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 15.10.2010 - 09.01.2011.
Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, München 28.01.2011 - 01.05.2011.
Musées des Beaux-Arts de Marseilles, 27.05.2011 - 28.08.2011.
(Reunion des Musées Nationaux du France, rmn)

Publications
• The Orientalists by Kristian Davies p. 76 -96-97.
• Du Maroc aux Indes, Voyages en Orient de Lynne Thornton, Editions ACR, p. 153. (Khamsin)
• L’Orientalisme En Europe, De Delacroix À Kandinsky, p.186-187.
Landscapes of the imagination Eamon Gearon, THE SAHARA A CULTURAL HISTORY, Oxford
University Press-2011, p.127 (Egyptomania).

Biography
Ludwig Hans Fisher was a pupil at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, of Eduard von
Lichtenfels in painting, of Louis Jacoby in engraving, and of William Unger in etching,
he completed his studies traveling in Italy, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, and India, and
afterwards settled in Vienna. Besides a number of oil paintings, he executed for the
Vienna Museum of Natural History nine decorative landscapes (1889). Amongst his series
of etchings and engravings, the cycle “Historical Landscapes from Austria-Hungary” is
his most remarkable production. He also painted many water-colors, and published Die
Technik der Aquarellmalerei (7th ed. 1898).

14 15