Louis Comfort Tiffany

(1848-1933)

Lazy Life Around the Old Sub-Treasury of Morocco, at Tangier 27 x 40 in. (68.6 x 101.6 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
American Society of Painters in Water Colors, New York, consigned from the artist, 1873.
John Taylor Johnston (1820-1893), New York, acquired from the above, 1873.
Sale, Somerville Art Gallery, New York, December 22, 1876, lot 284, sold by the above. (as Tangiers, Old Treasury Building)
Sarah Helen (née Griswold) Green (1815-1893), New York, acquired at the above sale.
Private collection, New York, acquired circa 1920s.
By descent to the present owner within the family of the above.

Exhibited
New York, National Academy of Design, Sixth Annual Exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors, 1873, p. 11, no. 64.
New York, Brooklyn Art Association, Spring Exhibition, March 17-22, 1873, p. 18, no. 249. (as Lazy Life Around the Old Sub-Treasury at Morocco)
Philadelphia, United States Centennial International Exhibition, May 10-November 10, 1876, p. 26, no. 549b. (as Lazy Life in Morocco); p. 25, no. 277. (as Lazy Life in the East - Gate of the Sub-Treasury, Tangiers)
New York, National Academy of Design, The Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Statuary: The Property of John Taylor Johnston, Esq. to be Sold at Auction, November 29-December 22, 1876, no. 284. (as Tangiers, Old Treasury Building)

Literature
"New York," Boston Daily Advertiser, May 7, 1872, vol. 119, no. 109, n.p., no. 64. (as The Entrance to the Prison, Tangier, Africa)
"Artists at Work. Preparations for the Spring Exhibitions. Studios and Ateliers Brimming with Professional Business," The New York Hearld, December 21, 1872, whl. no. 13,271, p. 3. (as Outside of the Prison at Tangiers)
"Art Items," Daily Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, May 25, 1872, vol. XXXIV, no. 42, p. 3. (as Entrance to the Prison, Tangier, Africa)
"Art Notes: American an Art Centre," The Brooklyn Daily Union, January 3, 1873, vol. X, no. 93, p. 2. (as Outside Tangiers Prison)
"National Academy of Design. Exhibition of Water-Color Drawings," Evening Post, New York, February 5, 1873, vol. 72, p. 3. (as Lazy Life around the Old-Sub Treasury, Tangier, Morocco)
"Art Matters. National Academy of Design," The New York Herald, February 7, 1873, whl. no. 13,319, p. 3.
"Water Color Exhibition. American Pictures," The World, New York, February 10, 1873, vol. XIII, no. 4195, p. 2. (as Old Sub-Treasury)
"American Society of Painters in Water Colors," Evening Post, New York, February 11, 1873, vol. 72, p. 2.
"Literature and Art. Art. The Academy Exhibition," The Christian Union, New York, February 12, 1873, vol. 11, no. 7, p. 127.
"The Water-Color Collection: Exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water-Colors," New York Times, February 16, 1873, vol. XXII, no. 6681, p. 3.
"Art. Exhibition of the Watercolor Society," The Independent, New York, February 20, 1873, vol. XXV, no. 1264, p. 231.
"Fine Arts.," New-York Tribune, February 21, 1873, vol. XXXII, no. 9, 949, p. 2. (as Lazy Life around the Old Sub Treasury of Morocco at Tangier)
"Art Notes: Exhibition of Water Colors," The Examiner and The Chronicle, New York, February 27, 1873, vol. L, no. 9, and vol. XXVII., no. 40, p. 3. (as View of the Sub-Treasury of Morocco at Algiers)
"Art Notes. The Brooklyn Art Association. The Spring Exhibition," The Examiner and The Chronicle, New York, April 3, 1873, vol. L, no. 14, and vol. XXVII, no. 45, p. 3, (as Old Sub-Treasury at Morocco).
F. Leslie, Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition, New York, 1876, p. 203. (as Lazy Life in the East - Gate of the Sub-Treasury, Tangiers)
"The Centennial Exposition: Glimpses at the Art Collection," The Connecticut Courant, Hartford, June 8, 1876, vol. CXII, no. 24, p. 1. (as The Old Treasury Building in Tangiers)
"American Water-Colors. The Display at Philadelphia," New York Times, June 18, 1876, vol. XXV, no, 7725, p. 10.
"The Art Gallery. The Pictures at the Exposition," Albany Evening Journal, New York, September 19, 1876, vol. 47, no. 14,089, p. 1. (as Lazy Life in the East)
C.E. Clement, L. Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works, Boston and New York, 1896, vol. II, p. 296-97. (as Lazy Life in the East)

We are grateful to Dr. Roberta A. Mayer for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of this work and for preparing the following essay.

Louis Comfort Tiffany's fascination with North Africa and Moorish Spain was sparked by his early training with Samuel Colman (1832–1920) and then fueled by his 1868 studies in Paris. To build his portfolio, Tiffany embarked on an extensive overseas sketching trip in July 1870 in the company of Robert Swain Gifford (1840–1905). They spent nearly all of September in Morocco, one of the destinations described in Mark Twain's wildly popular Innocents Abroad (1869). The country was already well known to European Orientalist painters beginning with the French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) and had excited a new generation of artists such as Henri Regnault (1843–1871). Tiffany was one of the earliest American painters to pursue Morocco as a subject.

After many adventures and some setbacks due to illness and difficult weather, Tiffany and Gifford returned to New York City in February 1871. By the end of December 1872, a reporter for the New York Herald noted that Tiffany had:

"...recently ended a residence of many months in and near Tangiers [sic], Morocco, and brought back with him many picturesque and useful studies. Some of these have been used for composition, and Mr. Tiffany's easels are full of progressing works. 'Outside of the Prison at Tangiers' is one of the largest pictures of the kind ever painted in this country. It is in water colors, and will be exhibited next Spring by the American Water Color Society. It contains about twenty figures, and is principally noticeable for the accuracy with which it indicates the fanciful and picturesque ensemble of the people and locality.¹"

The working title reveals that Tiffany's scene could be found in the eastern part of the casbah at the sultan's palace or Dar El Makhzen. This eighteenth-century complex included a court of law, a prison, and a treasury that contained a heavy wood vault known as the sub-treasury. Today the Kasbah Museum of Mediterranean Cultures occupies this site.

By February 1873, the painting was debuted in a gilt frame at the sixth annual exhibition of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors as Lazy Life Around the Old Sub-Treasury of Morocco, at Tangier. As is now evident, Tiffany's composition focused on the entrance to the sub-treasury with a view into its interior of columns and horseshoe arches; it was located adjacent to the exterior wall of the prison. Tiffany enlivened the setting by casting it as a genre scene populated by men he had likely sketched on the streets and in the markets of Tangier, ranging from a stately elder on the center staircase to Arab street vendors and Berber (Amazigh) nomads. In the press, Tiffany was described as a young man whose Parisian training was evident, as was his effective use of color, though the critics often wanted to see more refined naturalism in his figures.

Tiffany's painting was quickly purchased by John Taylor Johnston (1820–1893), a railroad investor, businessman, prominent art collector, and first president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.² The next major venue for Tiffany's painting was the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia.

By the end of 1876, Johnston was forced to auction his art collection for financial reasons, including Tiffany's Tangiers, Old Treasury Building, 27 x 41 inches.³ It sold for $1,000, the highest price achieved for Johnston's watercolors.⁴ The buyer was Mrs. John C. [Cleve] Green, née Sarah Helen Griswold (1815–1893), then a widow.⁵ She died in 1893, but sadly all three of her children predeceased her. After her death, the whereabouts of the painting was unknown until now.

Lazy Life Around the Old Sub-Treasury of Morocco, at Tangier stands as one of Tiffany's major early works and a depiction of a place that deeply resonated with his aesthetic interests. The title is based on a familiar Orientalist trope, yet Tiffany, in using such a large format for his watercolor, tried to convey his authentic experience of an unfamiliar cultural milieu where he witnessed an array of men in fascinating attire going about their daily lives.

¹ "Artists at Work," New York Herald, December 21, 1872, 3.
² "American Society of Painters in Water Colors," Evening Post (New York), February 11, 1873, 2; "Other Deaths: John Taylor Johnston," New York Times, March 25, 1893, 2.
³ Catalogue, the collection of paintings, drawings, and statuary, the property of John Taylor Johnston, Esq. to be sold at auction, R. Somerville, auctioneer, New York, December 19–20 and 22, 1876, no. 284.
⁴ "The Johnston Sale of Paintings," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 23, 1876, 3.
⁵ Clara Erskine Clement and Laurence Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896), 297; Henry Hall, ed., America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography, Vol. 1 (New York: New York Tribune, 1895), 279–80.