Alfred Dehodencq

Alfred Dehodencq was wounded in the arm during the Paris revolution of 1848 and was sent to Spain to recover. He stayed abroad for about 15 years. In Spain he studied Velázquez and Goya and painted bullfights and street life, and from 1853 he lived in Morocco, often described as the first European artist to settle there for years at a time. His Moroccan scenes, including an execution of a Jewish woman shown at the Salon of 1861, made his reputation in Paris.

He came back to France with his family in 1863. His Farewell of King Boabdil to Granada, shown at the Salon of 1869 and now in the Musée d'Orsay, is almost four metres tall and shows Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, taking leave of his city after it fell to the Catholic Monarchs in 1492.