El Khasne, Petra
The rock-cut façade of the Khazneh at Petra glowing at the end of the dark Siq gorge — the ‘rose-red city’, unchanged and world-famous.
Petra
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
El Khasne, Petra — at a glance
- Artist
- Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900)
- Year
- 1874
- Movement
- Hudson River School
- Place
- The Khazneh and the Siq, Petra, Jordan
- Viewpoint
- Looking out of the Siq gorge to the Treasury façade — unchanged and matchable (World Heritage Site)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 153 × 128 cm
- Now at
- Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, New York
Overview
El Khasné, Petra is a dramatic architectural landscape by Frederic Edwin Church, painted in 1874 from drawings made on a strenuous journey to Petra in 1868. It shows the Khazneh (‘the Treasury’), the great classical façade carved into a pink sandstone cliff, seen from within the narrow Siq gorge: the towering rock walls in deep shadow on either side, and, framed at the end of the gap, the sunlit carved front glowing rose and gold, with two tiny Bedouin figures and a horse. It is oil on canvas, about 153 by 128 cm, and it hangs at Olana, Church's own house on the Hudson.
Where was El Khasne, Petra painted?
Scholarship Petra was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, a caravan city carved from the sandstone mountains of what is now southern Jordan, flourishing around the turn of the era and largely abandoned by late antiquity. It was made known to Western travellers by Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812. The Khazneh — a temple or royal tomb façade about 40 m high — and the Siq, the long, deep cleft that is the classic approach to it, are unchanged and instantly recognisable; Petra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Jordan's most visited monument. Church's framed view is exactly the view visitors get today emerging from the Siq.
What is in the painting?
Most of the canvas is the sheer, near-black walls of the Siq gorge, streaked and fissured, closing in on both sides. Between them, at the end, the lower part of the Khazneh's façade is caught in sunlight: columns, pediment, doorway, carved in the cliff, warm pink and gold against the shadow. Two small robed figures and a horse stand on the sandy floor of the gorge. A slot of bright sky far above.
Look closely
The Siq walls
Sheer, near-black streaked sandstone cliffs close in on both sides, filling most of the canvas.
The sunlit Khazneh
The lower façade — columns, pediment, doorway — is caught in sun, glowing rose and gold at the end of the gap.
The Bedouin figures
Two small robed figures and a horse on the sandy gorge floor give the scale.
The slot of sky
A bright band of sky shows far overhead between the gorge walls.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A dark, towering gorge framing a small, brilliantly lit patch of carved façade at its far end.
Scholarship Church makes the contrast of dark and light the whole subject: the crushing shadowed rock of the Siq, and the sudden jewel of the sunlit Khazneh glimpsed through it. Every stratum and crack of the sandstone is precisely observed; the effect is of revelation.
History & provenance
The painting hangs at Olana State Historic Site, the Persian-inspired house Church built for himself above the Hudson River at Hudson, New York.
Sources
- Olana State Historic Site / Metropolitan Museum of Art literature — Frederic Edwin Church, ‘El Khasné, Petra’ (1874)
- UNESCO World Heritage — Petra, Jordan
Frequently asked
Where is the view in El Khasné, Petra?
Looking out of the Siq — the deep, narrow gorge that is the classic approach to Petra — at the sunlit rock-cut façade of the Khazneh (‘the Treasury’) at its far end, in what is now southern Jordan.
Can you go there?
Yes. Petra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Jordan's most visited monument; the Siq and the Khazneh are unchanged, and Church's framed view is exactly what visitors see emerging from the gorge.
When did Church visit Petra?
In 1868, on a difficult journey through the Near East; he painted the large canvas in 1874.
What is the Khazneh?
A monumental façade about 40 m high, carved into a pink sandstone cliff by the Nabataeans around the turn of the era — a temple or royal tomb, nicknamed ‘the Treasury’.
Where is the painting now?
At Olana State Historic Site, Church's own house above the Hudson at Hudson, New York.
Related paintings
More by Frederic Edwin Church
