The Citadel at Cairo Seen from the Mokattam (La citadelle du Caire. Prise du Mokatam.)

About this Brooklyn Icon

The Brooklyn Museum is commemorating its 200th anniversary by spotlighting 200 standout objects in its encyclopedic collection.

In his epic series The Life of Christ, James Tissot melds naturalism and spirituality across 350 watercolors that span the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus through his Resurrection. Tissot was a successful society painter in London and Paris who, after experiencing a powerful vision in 1885, devoted the rest of his career to depicting religious subjects. On trips to Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, he made extensive figure and landscape studies for his biblical project, believing this would endow his imagery with historical accuracy. Paid exhibitions of the completed watercolor series in London and several U.S. cities were a resounding public success, if not always a critical one. In 1900, the painter John Singer Sargent urged A. Augustus Healy, then president of the Board of Trustees, to purchase the series for the new Brooklyn Museum, which had opened just three years earlier. The Museum established a subscription campaign to raise funds from the public, enabling it to acquire Tissot’s religious magnum opus for $60,000.