ABSTRACT
In 1841, the Scottish artist Sir David Wilkie painted his last picture, a portrait of Mehemet Ali, then the Pasha of Egypt. The critical analysis of a single painting, in this case Wilkie's portrait of Mehemet Ali, reveals that the equation of the terms 'Orientalist painting' and 'Orientalism' is a problematic one. Wilkie's large portrait of the Pasha arrived in London shortly after the artist's death in 1841. The Pasha's commission for this portrait was largely the result of nineteenth-century travel woes. The act of the Pasha's portrait being painted was therefore not a process wherein one dominant figure exercised and maintained influence and control, but rather one in which an entire process of negotiation, dissent, and compromise was acted out. Jean Leon Gerome's 1863 portrait of Napoleon makes a striking contrast with Wilkie's portrait of the Pasha. Both depict foreign conquerors of Egypt, but one epitomizes domination and conquest, the other, placid deliberation.
