James David Smillie etched Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s painting of a Middle Eastern street scene <i>Lady of Cairo Visiting</i> for the <i>American Art Review</i> issue of June 1881. Commenting on the issue, the <i>New York Times</i> noted that Smillie had been “particularly happy in his drawing” of the donkey, which appears prominently in the print.
A catalogue raisonné of Smillie’s prints has estimated that about 10,000 impressions of this scene were made, primarily for use as art magazine illustrations. To produce such a large number of prints from a copper plate, a soft metal that deteriorates with use, the publishers would have had to face the copper by electroplating. In this process (known as “steel facing”), a thin layer of iron is deposited on the copper plate.
Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847–1928) trained with Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris and later was known as “the American Gérôme.” He made a number of trips from his Paris base to North Africa and Egypt to sketch and collect artifacts for his paintings of Egyptian and Algerian subjects.
Location:
Currently not on view
Related Publication:
Brucia Witthoft. The Fine-Arts Etchings of James David Smillie 1833-1909
