Eugène FROMENTIN (La Rochelle, 1820-1876) Falcon hunting Canvas Signed and dated lower right "- 69 - Eug Fromentin"; bears an inventory number on a label on the reverse of the stretcher "13.432". (Old restorations). 67x52cm Provenance: - Probably Galerie Georges Petit (according to the inventory number on the reverse); - Sergent Collection, Paris. Our painting was known only through the Milius heliogravure, reproduced in L. Gonse, Eugène Fromentin, peintre et écrivain, Paris, 1881. Eugène Fromentin made several trips to Algeria between 1846 and 1853. Deeply influenced by what he discovered there, he aimed to give his works a documentary dimension. In 1857, he published Un été dans le Sahara and in 1859 Une année dans le Sahel. His most famous falcon-hunting painting is La chasse au faucon en Algérie: la curée, 1863 (canvas, 162.5x118cm, in the Musée d'Orsay). This high-flying hunting practice, reserved for the nobility, employed birds capable of flying at 420 km/h to split their prey. In our painting, Fromentin concentrates on the immensity of the landscape and sky, which take up most of the composition. In the foreground, two men rest at the feet of two perfectly drawn horsemen. The latter wear a perching glove on their forearm and look up at their birds of prey, which blend into the clouds. A little further to the left, riders gallop across the plain, their arms stretched skyward. Another group emerges in the distance, reinforcing the impression of depth and space created by the diagonal gaze of the riders towards their falcons.