An illustrious collector and renaissance man, Hafez Afifi Pacha, alongside Huda Shaarawi Hanem amongst others, were the founders of the Friends of Mahmoud Mokhtar Foundation, following the artist’s passing in 1934. Huda Shaarawi famously said at the first commemoration of his death on 27 of March 1935:

Hafez Afifi Pacha trained as a physician, became a career politician. He was appointed Foreign Minister in 1928 during the reign of King Fuad I. He later played a key role as the Egyptian delegate at the founding of the United Nations during the reign of King Farouk I.

A truly formidable man, he was a member of the cognoscenti during the belle epoque era of Egypt. A true patron of the arts, upon building his farm, The Pearl of the Desert in the outskirts of Cairo in Mansouria, he commissioned, then rising architect Hassan Fathy to design and construct a scaled village for the farmers who would be residing on the premises.

Like Oum Kalthoum, Mahmoud Mokhtar is undeniably one Egypt’s more celebrated artists of the first half of the 20^th Century. This is in part due to his ability to weave Egypt’s coloroful and multi-faceted history into his sculptural compositions. Mokhtar famously said: “When I was a child, there had been no sculpture and no sculptor in my country for more than seventeen hundred years. The images that appeared among the ruins and sands at the edge of the desert were considered to be accursed and evil idols – no one should come near.” He was the first Egyptian sculptor to follow the pharaonic tradition of sculpting.

Mokhtar moved to Cairo from the countryside in 1902 and was amongst the first to enroll in the city’s new School of Fine Arts six years later. He honed his skills as a sculptor under the tutelage of the Parisian professor Guillaume Laplagne until a scholarship from the Egyptian Prince Kamal Youssef enabled Mokhtar to continue his education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he was introduced to the latest artistic styles and the political force of art that would later characterise his work. Perhaps the most significant meeting of Mokhtar’s Parisian sojourn was with political leader Saad Zaghloul. The sculptor joined forces with Zaghloul upon his return to Cairo and became part of the group of intellectuals and revolutionaries who established independence from Britain in 1922.

Though these early works from his school years are mostly lost, a few photographs of small sculptures like Khawla bint al-Azwar, a medieval Syrian female warrior, and Ibn El Balad, a caricature of a local Cairo boy, exhibit how he used this classical training to depict local figures from Egyptian culture and Islamic history. Ibn El Balad was first exhibited at the Cairo Automobile Club in 1911; the image of the exhibition can also be found published in Modernism on the Nile by Alexandra Dika Seggerman (page 82).

Upon close inspection Ibn El Balad inscribed with the date of 1910, can be regarded as a bronze with art school casting due to the quality of the bronze, technique and inscriptions. Further, according to renowned Egyptian art critic, Sidki El Gabakhangi, he mentions that following the 1911 Automobile graduation show, Mokhtar was able to sell eight versions of the Ibn El Balad sculpture for the price of two gold pounds in Egypt at the time. The story is further elaborated, that one of the collectors that acquired the version of Ibn El Balad was a Belgium couple which resided in Downtown Cairo off of present day Talaat Harb St. (Mohamed Sedki Al-Gabakhangy, The History of the Egyptian Art Movement to 1945, Cairo, 1986, pg 16). Many discussions revolved around the theme of Ibn El Balad: was it an homage to Mokhtar himself, an autobiographical interpretation to his old self – a young village boy looking upon a blossoming and rising sculptor in the capital city? Or was it actually a caricature of a person who was part of Mokhtar’s life. The question remains debated, however, the work is clear depiction of the early signs and development in the identity of the great sculptor we know as Mahmoud Mokhtar

Unlike the works that are commonly associated with Mokhtar, these two examples presented are rarely seen at auction. Arous El Nil (bust) is truly the summation of Mokhtar’s aesthetic following his education in the studio of Jules Coutan in Paris. It is in Arous El Nil (bust) where we see the merging of a pharaonic heritage with art deco lines. The bust is from a side angle, a stylized visage and decorated with pharaonic inspired jewelry which are reminiscent of statues of Egyptian queens. Her head piece is flanked by wings of the goddess Maat and the scarab plays a central role in her necklace, which is a symbol for fertility in ancient Egypt.

The full-length sculpture entitled Arous El Nil (La Fiancee du Nil) was previously housed in the collection of Musée de Jeu de Paume in Paris. In Dr. Badreldin Abou Ghazi’s book entitled A Generation of Pioneers, he further clarifies that the French government acquired a full version of Arous El Nil in the year 1930 in a stone format (Badreldin Aboughazi, The Generation of Pioneers, Cairo, 1975, n.p); it is probable that this version was acquired following Mokhtar’s seminal show at Bernheim Jeune Gallery, Paris, where a full version of Arous El Nil was also exhibited. Important to note that the work was moved at a later stage from the Jeu de Paume to the Centre Pompidou where it is currently hosted. Another or possibly the same full version of Arous el Nil was exhibited at the Egyptian Pavilion at the Exposition Internationale de Paris in 1937.

Arous El Nil (bust) in bronze is cast using the sandcasting technique, as opposed to the more commonly used lost wax (cire perdue) method. The bronze has a silvered surface, which means that originally it would have had a brilliant silver appearance, which would likely be revealed through professional conservation. The silvered surface, wear, and period socle are all consistent with a probable dating to the 1930s, perhaps shortly after the model was conceived in 1929. Without the markings of a foundry mark, the work was most likely created for decorative purposes.

Sotheby’s is honored to be presenting these two works by Mahmoud Mokhtar from the collection of Hafiz Afifi Pacha.

Sotheby’s would also like to thank Ms. Imane Ibrahim for providing supporting research material for this entry.