Léon Belly

Léon Belly
Léon Belly, self-portrait, date unknown
Born	1827 St. Omer, France
Died	1877 Paris, France
Education	Troyon, Théodore Rousseau
Movement	Orientalist

Léon Auguste Adolphe Belly (1827–1877) was a French landscape painter.

Life

Belly was born at St. Omer, in 1827. He studied under Troyon, and in 1849 visited Barbizon where he came under the influence of Théodore Rousseau.^[1]

In 1850–1 he travelled to Greece, Syria, and Egypt. In 1853 he made his debut at the Paris Salon, exhibiting four landscapes of Nablus and Beirut, and of the shores of the Dead Sea, which attracted critical acclaim. In 1855–6 he visited Egypt, travelling up the Nile in the company of another painter, Edouard Imer. A second trip to Egypt in 1856 was largely spent making studies for his painting Pilgrims going to Mecca, now in the Musée d'Orsay.^[1]

Pilgrims going to Mecca, painting from 1861. Now at the Musée d'Orsay.

As well as his paintings of Middle Eastern subjects he painted portraits and landscapes of Normandy and the Sologne throughout his career, and in 1867 bought land at Montboulan. He died in Paris in 1877.^[1]

Works

His paintings include:

• Twilight in November.
• Fishers of équilles.
• The Desert of Nassoub. 1857.
• The Plain of Djyseh.
• Pilgrims going to Mecca, ("Pèlerins allant à la Mecque") 1861. Paris, Musée d'Orsay.^[2]
• The Banks of the Nile ("Bords du Nil (Vieux Caire), Barques"}. Saint-Omer, Musée de l'hôtel Sandelin.^[3]
• Approach to an Egyptian Village.
• The Dead Sea ("La Mer morte") 1866. Paris, Musée du quai Branly.^[4]
• The Nile — near Rosetta.
• Montboulan in Sologne ("le gué de Montboulan, en Sologne"), 1877. Paris, musée d'Orsay.^[5]

Gallery

• 
  La dahabieh engravée
• 
  Ulysses And The Sirens by Léon Belly
• 
  View of Shubra

References

1. Stevens, Mary Anne, ed. (1984). The Orientalists, Delacroix to Matisse: European Painters in North Africa and the Near East (exhibition catalogue). London: Royal Academy of Arts. p. 113. ISBN 9780297784173.
2. Base Joconde: Pèlerins allant à la Mecque, French Ministry of Culture. (in French)
3. Base Joconde: Bords du Nil (Vieux Caire), Barques, French Ministry of Culture. (in French)
4. "La Mer morte". RMN. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
5. "le gué de Montboulan, en Sologne". RMN. Retrieved 10 July 2012.

Sources

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Belly, Léon Auguste Adolphe". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.

Further reading

• Pouillon, F., Dictionnaire des Orientalistes de Langue Française, KARTHALA, 2008, p. 75