right way is indeed clearly distinct from error. So whoever disbelieves in the devil and believes in Allah, he indeed lays hold on the firmest handle which shall never break. And Allah is Hearing, Knowing…...the inscription thereafter is truncated…probably not a Koranic verse but rather a dedication to a caliph." Regarding the snake depicted, "Richard G. Zweifel, a herpetologist from the American Museum of Natural History…commented that 'the snake looks more like a South American boa constrictor than anything else,' a possibility that would add yet another layer of hybridity to the image. Gérôme could perhaps have studied such an animal at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Provenance and exhibition The painting was sold by Gérôme's dealer Goupil et Cie in 1880 to US collector Albert Spencer for 75,000 francs. Spencer sold it to Alfred Corning Clark in 1888 for $19,500, who in 1893 loaned it for exhibition at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His wife and heir Elizabeth Scriven Clark loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before selling it to Schaus Art Galleries in 1899 for $10,000 or $12,000, in a transaction that might also have involved receipt of another artwork. It was acquired in 1902 by August Heckscher for an unknown price, then reacquired by Clark's son Robert Sterling Clark in 1942 for $500—a striking example of Gérôme's fall from favor with collectors. (Prices for his work have rebounded greatly in the 21st century, with paintings selling for millions of dollars.) Since 1955 The Snake Charmer has been in the collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Snake Charmer was included in the exhibition The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) at the Getty Museum in 2010 and the Musée d'Orsay in 2010-2011. Reception In 1978, the painting was used as the front cover of Edward Said's book Orientalism. "Since he defined his project as an examination of textual representations, Said never once mentioned Gérôme’s painting, but numerous subsequent authors have examined aspects of the artist’s work, and this painting in particular, in relation to the concept of Orientalism that Said defined." A detail of the painting is also used as part of the cover design of Peter Lamborn Wilson's book Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy, as published by Autonomedia. Art critic Jonathan Jones bluntly calls The Snake Charmera sleazy imperialist vision of "the east." In front of