Page 38 - Orient Collection

13. The Water MELON SELLER

Artist: Charles VERLAT, Belgian, (1824 - 1890)
Execution date (approximate): 1880
Téchnique: Oil on Canvas, (With iscription Jerusalem, lower left)
Measures: 100 x 70 cm.
Description: The Holy City of Jerusalem attracted many Painters of the 19c. Who depicted
in their canvas many daily scene of people and traders, in and outside the city. A boy
trying to buy a water melon at the door of the Holy City of Jerusalem, with one penny (or
Taarifa-the old Palestinian currency), and the merchant asking for two.

Exhibitions
Royal Academy of Arts in London, in 1869, 1886, Dictionary of Contributors and their work
from its foundation in 1769 to 1904,Vol. VIII, p.80.

Biography
Verlat was a Belgian painter from Antwerp. He was a pupil of Nicaise de Keyser, and
studied at the Antwerp Academy.
In 1842 appeared his first important picture, Pippin the Short Killing a Lion. About 1849
he went to Paris, where he worked under Ary Scheffer. In 1855 he won a gold medal at
the Exposition Universelle at Paris with his Tiger Attacking a Herd of Buffaloes, and in
1858 exhibited Le Coup de collier (now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts at Antwerp)
at the Paris Salon. In 1866 he was appointed director of the Academy at Weimar,
where he painted some fine portraits, notably those of the grand-duchess of Saxony
and of the musician Liszt. Soon after his return to Antwerp in 1875 he visited Palestine,
and brought back a large number of interesting pictures, including Vox Populi (Royal
Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), The Tomb of Jesus, and The Flight into Egypt. In 1885
he was appointed director of the Antwerp Academy. Other important works by Verlat
are the panoramas of the battle of Waterloo and the treaty of San Stefano, Christ
between the Two Thieves, Defending the Flock (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp),
Oxen Ploughing in Palestine (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), Godfrey of Bouillon
at the Siege of Jerusalem (Brussels Gallery), and Sheep-Dog Defending the Flock
(Brussels Gallery). He executed a series of original etchings, and published in 1879 a
book on the Antwerp Academy. He died at Antwerp

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