Almehs playing Chess in a Cafe* by Jean-Léon Gérôme

This refined work is fully part of the Orientalism trend, a major French academic movement of the nineteenth century. The famous painter Gérôme Jean-Léon excels in representing intimate genre scenes of daily oriental life. The painting entitled “Almehs playing Chess in a Cafe” depicts a moment of leisure and intellectual concentration with great poetic sensitivity. This unique creation testifies to the artist’s pronounced taste for exoticism and carefully constructed compositions.

In the shadow of an Egyptian interior under a large stone arch, two women are settled in the foreground. One of them, seated on the left, wears a bright yellow skirt and holds a long wooden pipe. Opposite her, a young woman wearing a blue veil is seated on a turned wooden cage serving as a seat. The two players attentively observe a chessboard placed on a small cage positioned between them. Behind them, a standing man wearing an orange turban leans over to follow the game. Several other customers smoke or chat in the dark background. A powerful beam of light crosses the room diagonally from a high opening, intensely illuminating the floor.

The painter’s technical virtuosity is fully expressed in the treatment of contrasted light and the brilliance of the yellow skirt. His absolute mastery of oil paint makes it possible to contrast the realism of raw architecture with the delicacy of female faces. This admirable work highlights the artist’s sense of color.