Evening on the Terrace (Morocco)

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant

1879

Gift of Lord Strathcona and family, inv. 1927.243

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Three figures are on a terrace overlooking a coastal city. Two women recline on a richly patterned rug, while a man sits nearby. The scene is bathed in warm, natural light. Typical for the Orientalist painter, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant’s studio in Paris was like an Eastern bazaar, crammed with rugs, caftans, weapons and turbans brought back from his journeys to Spain and the Moroccan sultanate. Working from the sketches he had made on the spot, the artist recreated that inaccessible world of Muslim women seeking cooler air on their terraces at the end of the day. Among his different, dreamed-of Orients was the Egypt of the Pharaohs, and the seated figure has the hieratic pose of the Colossi of Memnon. At the Académie Julian in Paris, he taught many American and Canadian artists (including Marc-Aurè