General presentation

Most of the collection of easel paintings exhibited at the Ennejma Ezzahra palace (in the painter's studio and in the blue gallery) belongs to the Tunisian period (1909-1932) of Rodolphe d'Erlanger career. This period, considered by critics as "the most important from the point of view of the maturity of the means of realization and the crystallization of a proper aesthetic vision" (Louati, 1996) began around 1910 and marked a turning point in the painter's approach, «... in contact with Tunisian light, his palette evolved from warm colours and shades of chiaroscuro of the studio to the brighter tones of the open air ».

From 1910 until his death in 1932, R. d'Erlanger travelled to paint some towns or villages in Tunisia, but most of his production was devoted to Sidi Bou Said and its immediate surroundings: Carthage, La Goulette, Gammarth, Tunis and its gulf.

Rodolphe d'Erlanger was also a portraitist of great sensibility, painting the people he loves and respects : the lively portraits of his wife Bettina and his son Léo alternate with those of his friends such as : Sheikh Ahmad al-Wafi, Dr. Charles Nicolle, little Mokhtar, playmate of his son Leo and a host of other figures of Sidi Bou Said: common people or outstanding figures, musicians and servants.

The Tunisian paintings of the baron reveal a real temperament of plein-air painter and breathe a serenity and a calm that only a long-lasting contact with the subject and a stability of the vision operating in depth can guarantee.

There is no ideal exoticism, but a constant search for truth, whether through street scenes (19 paintings), portraits and figures (28 paintings) or natural landscapes (17 paintings) The formats range from small (15cm x 9.5 cm) to relatively large (106 cm x 131 cm). Some of these paintings have been exhibited either in group exhibitions or in personal exhibitions (eg. the "Paysage de Tunisie" personal exhibition held at the Salle Brunner in Paris, 1922 or participations from 1926 to 1931 at the Salon des artistes tunisiens founded by André Delacroix.