Alexandre gabriel decamps biography channel

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803-1860) was a French painter and printmaker.

Decamps was very prolific and also was immensely popular during his lifetime.  His work—over 2,000 paintings, drawings and prints—covers a very large range of themes; military, religious, historical, Oriental, portraiture and animal studies.  It is difficult to categorize both his subject and style, but he definitely became well known and appreciated for his Oriental (basically Turkish) themes.

Already in the 17^th century there developed in Europe a strong taste for things of the East (Turkish/Persian/Arabic on the one hand and Chinese on the other).  The fascination with Turk