Siout, Egypt

Sanford Robinson Gifford

National Gallery of Art

A dirt path winds through a field of gold-green grass back to a town built on low hills in this horizontal, densely hazy landscape painting. Several minuscule people walk on the path and at least one person rides a horse. More people are gathered by a domed, white structure in the distance, where the winding path meets a straighter road leading up into the town near the left edge of the canvas. At least six people sit or stand near a conical white tepee to the right, in the lower quadrant. Two horses and about two dozen smaller animals graze nearby. In the town, the cluster of low, flat-topped buildings, the one domed building with two slender minarets, and palm trees are painted in tones of muted mauve pink and peach. The sun is painted as a hot blaze of light low in the washed-out sky over rocky mountains, which stretch across the left half of the composition. The artist signed and dated the painting with angular red letters in the lower right corner, “S.R. Gifford 1874.”