This energetic pencil sketch is a preparatory study for Moorish
Bath (fig. 1), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The painting shows a
seated nude bather on tiled steps, attended by a richly adorned Black servant
carrying a brass basin, against the brilliant setting of an Islamic hammam.

The drawing reveals Gérôme’s process of working out the
arrangement of figures before refining his composition on canvas. The seated
nude occupies the same central position as in the finished painting, her body
angled sideways on the bath steps. Around her, Gérôme experiments with the
positioning of attendants, sketched in multiple overlapping outlines,
suggesting his search for balance between the figures. The architectural
setting is indicated only in broad strokes - the curved arches and framing recesses
that would later become the distinctive Moorish backdrop.

What emerges is Gérôme’s acute concern for gesture,
proportion and spatial rhythm at the preliminary stage. The quick, nervous
lines and pentimenti emphasise movement and possibility, in contrast to the
polished finish of the final canvas. This dynamic working process reminds us
that Gérôme, often remembered as the supreme arbiter of the academic tradition,
relied on a foundation of exploratory drawing in which invention and adjustment
were constantly at play. 

In Moorish Bath, exhibited in 1870, Gérôme exploited
the Orientalist theme of the harem and bathhouse, long popular in European art.
Yet as well as sensuality, the finished painting stresses surface, pattern and
contrast: the gleam of flesh against ceramic tiles, the bright fabrics draped
on the ledge and the shimmering basin of water, not to mention the differing
skin tones of the two attendants. The present study gives rare insight into how
Gérôme built such tableaux, beginning with swiftly sketched figures in flux,
later anchored within a richly detailed architectural frame.