The Land of Thirst

Near the start of his travel book A Summer in the Sahara, Fromentin describes poring over a map of the south of Algeria. Among the strange names he finds a vast blank plain labelled Bled-el-Ateuch, with its translation, Land of Thirst. The phrase stayed with him. It closes the book, and around 1869, some 15 years after the journey, it became the title of this painting. Men in white robes lie collapsed on the sand, some curled up, others stretched out flat. On top of a rock, one of them lifts an arm toward the pale, empty sky. Nothing in the landscape offers water, only stone, dust and distance. The painting was bequeathed to the State in 1920 by the collector Édouard Martell.