Lion on the Watch (c. 1885): Art, History and Details

Lion on the Watch (c. 1885) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In addition to his fascination with the classical past, Gérôme was one of the leading painters of "orientalist" subjects-exotic and romantic themes inspired by Napoleonic adventures abroad, romantic literature, and European colonialism. From 1855, Gérôme travelled regularly in Turkey, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Long fascinated by African animals, he sketched lions in the Paris zoo as a student and later hunted them on safari in North Africa.

Object facts

• Title: Lion on the Watch
• Date: c. 1885
• Creator attribution: Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood panel
• Dimensions: Framed: 105 x 133 x 13.5 cm (41 5/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 5/16 in.); Unframed: 72.3 x 100.5 cm (28 7/16 x 39 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1945.25

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. F. W. Gehring in memory of her husband, F. W. Gehring

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "'Lion on the Watch,' by Jean Léon Gérôme." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 4 (April 1946): 47-48
• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.
• Ackerman, Gerald M. Jean-Léon Gérôme: monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour. Courbevoie: ACR, 2000.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.