Edwin Lord Weeks (American, 1849 – 1903) was born and raised in and around Boston. In the early 1870’s however, he travelled to Syria, Palestine and Egypt. This trip apparently proved the turning point in Weeks' career as it revealed to him the field in which his genius could find its most natural expression. He decided to pursue his artistic education in Paris and in 1874 he was registered in the atelier of the most celebrated French Orientalist, Jean Léon Gérôme.