45. Narcisse Berchère (Étampes 1819-1891 Asnières-sur-Seine) Abu Leila Mosque, Cairo signed 'Berchère' (lower left) oil on canvas signed 'Berchère' (lower left) oil on canvas 60 x 47cm (23 5/8 x 18 1/2in). Provenance Private Collection, Scarborough, New York. Thence by descent to the present owner, since 1977 Exhibited Etampes, Musée des Beaux Arts, Berchère et l'Orient au Pays d'Etampes, 18 May- 22 September 2019 Literature Bernard Prost, Artistes modernes -Catalogue illustré des œuvres de N. Berchère, in Dictionnaire illustré des beaux-arts, Paris, 1885. Painter, engraver, and lithographer, Narcisse Berchère intitally trained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris first in the studio of Renoux, then in Charles Rémon's, which he soon left to discover Théodore Rousseau and Corot. Under the influence of the Barbizon School, he travelled around in France (Fontainebleau, Brittany and Normandy) where he painted his first landscapes in sober colours. From 1847 onwards, he travelled to Spain and to the Middle East, where his palette became lighter and richer. Fascinated by the desert and its light, he spent two months in the Sinai with Léon Belly and visited the Lower Egypt with his friends Jean-Léon Gérôme and the sculptor Bartholdi. In 1860, Ferdinand de Lesseps chose him as official draughtsman for the Suez Canal Company. He stayed there for 6 months during which he made numerous sketches to the surrounding region. Whether he paints in Palestine, Syria or Egypt, his oils and watercolour have the characteristics of a landscape painter; sometimes detailed, sometimes treated with broad, free brushstrokes in browns, light blues and greens with a few hints of turquoise, his canvases, make him a master of the Orientalist School.