The Orientalist Sale
The Orientalist Sale
Eugène Girardet
The Caravan
Auction Closed
March 29, 02:21 PM GMT
Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Eugène Girardet
French
1853 - 1907
The Caravan
signed Eugène Girardet lower right
oil on canvas
Unframed: 70.2 by 120.2cm., 27¾ by 47¼in.
Framed: 95 by 143.8cm., 37½ by 56½in.
Frost & Reed, London
Girardet's luminous, cinematic view of the nomadic life depicts a Berber tribe crossing the North African desert towards its next camp and watering place. The painting is as much a celebration of the stoicism and dignity of the self-sufficient tribesmen and women, shepherding their herd as they travel, as it is of the Atlas Mountains and the desert light.
Girardet hailed from an artistic Swiss Huguenot family, and even before his teacher Jean-Léon Gérôme encouraged him to visit North Africa he had long been inspired to travel by his uncles Karl and Edouard, who had journeyed to and painted Egypt, and from his father Paul, who had engraved episodes of the colonial war in Algeria after Horace Vernet. In 1874, Girardet embarked for Morocco, then travelled to Tunisia and Algeria, for which he developed a particular fondness.
In Algeria, Girardet spent most time in El Kantara and Bou-Saâda, in the foothills of the Saharan Atlas, painting simple everyday scenes like the present one: herds of goats in the dust, prayers in the desert, laundresses in the wadi, people going about their business among the red stone walls of the villages. In Bou-Saâda Girardet met fellower Orientalist painter Etienne Dinet with whom, back in Paris in 1877, Girardet and thirteen other artists formed the Société des peintres orientalistes français.
Girardet hailed from an artistic Swiss Huguenot family, and even before his teacher Jean-Léon Gérôme encouraged him to visit North Africa he had long been inspired to travel by his uncles Karl and Edouard, who had journeyed to and painted Egypt, and from his father Paul, who had engraved episodes of the colonial war in Algeria after Horace Vernet. In 1874, Girardet embarked for Morocco, then travelled to Tunisia and Algeria, for which he developed a particular fondness.
In Algeria, Girardet spent most time in El Kantara and Bou-Saâda, in the foothills of the Saharan Atlas, painting simple everyday scenes like the present one: herds of goats in the dust, prayers in the desert, laundresses in the wadi, people going about their business among the red stone walls of the villages. In Bou-Saâda Girardet met fellower Orientalist painter Etienne Dinet with whom, back in Paris in 1877, Girardet and thirteen other artists formed the Société des peintres orientalistes français.