Frederick Arthur Bridgman was a student of Jean-Leon Gérôme and went on to become one of the most renowned American Orientalists: "the American Gérôme". Born in Alabama, he first moved to New York and then to Paris in 1866. He soon fell under spell of Gérôme's love of the Levant and his precise draftsmanship and smooth finishes, but began to develop his own style, emphasizing bright colours and painterly brushwork.

He made his first of many trips to North Africa in 1872, and his sketches and collection of costumes and architectural pieces which he brought back to his studio in Paris appear in most of his finished works. His studio was in fact so crammed with objet d’art, John Singer Sargent jokingly named it a ‘must see’ Paris attraction alongside the Eiffel Tower! He was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor for his The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1877.

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