Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.S.A., R.H.A.

The colours are richer and more vibrant, notably the turquoise sea, and the surface is more textured. Original canvas. There is a small patch attached to the reverse in the bottom left quadrant, just left of the centre, otherwise in excellent overall condition with strong passages of toothpaste impasto throughout, notably along the foreground and to the boats. Under ultraviolet light, there is an area of retouching corresponding to the aforementioned patch and some minor specks of retouching to the sea in the centre of the composition. Held in a plaster gilt frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

'... still on the hunt for Eastern beauty, I was the guest of Rudolphe d'Erlanger in his Arab palace at Sidi-bu-Said in Tunis. I told him how much I would like to paint an Arab lady, for up to that time I had never seen one ...' (Sir John Lavery, The Life of a Painter, Cassell, 1940, p. 104)

So the aged painter writing in 1939, begins his fanciful account of his and Hazel Lavery's stay at Dar Ennejma Ezzahra, overlooking the Bay of Tunis twenty years earlier. The tale of his search to paint the portrait of an Arab woman of great beauty in 1919 must be taken with a pinch of salt as he had been producing studies of Moorish women since 1891. On this occasion the quest apparently ended in disappointment and the 'Eastern beauty' he discovered, lay around him in the beautiful bay and the pristine whitewashed village of Sidi-bu-Said.

The Tunisian holiday came after the completion of Lavery's service as an Official War Artist, and was the result of a generous offer from Rudolphe, Baron d'Erlanger, a scion of the celebrated banking dynasty. In 1917, before he took up his war commission, the industrious painter had executed d'Erlanger's portrait and the interior of his opulent residence at Falconwood, Shooter's Hill, Blackheath. As a great supporter of the entente cordiale and French Imperialism in North Africa, d'Erlanger was a man of his time. While northern Europe was ravaged, the French colonies of Algeria, Tunisia and the protectorate of Morocco, remained for the most part, peaceful. Unlike Morocco, Tunisia had enjoyed stability for the previous thirty years, and had not yet become a popular tourist destination. D'Erlanger was therefore able to commit himself to the restoration of both Dar Ennejma Ezzahra and the attractive seaside village of Sidi-bu-Said, as well as pursuing his interests in ethnomusicology. Also a keen amateur painter, he exhibited Paintings of Tunisia at the Leicester Galleries in 1922. His small oil sketch, Street in Cairo, presented to the Tate Gallery by Joseph Duveen, like those of their mutual friend, Winston Churchill (see lot 152), betrays Lavery's influence. It is clear from d'Erlanger's other works that both host and painter were captivated by the sweep of mountains and sea which lay before them.

At Tunis, Lavery's enthusiasm for the striking topography of the North African coast was rekindled and he found his 'Eastern beauty' in a series of views in the environs of the village. Evening, Bay of Tunis, Early Morning, Bay of Tunis, and Sidi-bu-Said, Tunis, all feature mountains dominating the bay. The first of these is likely to have been painted from the same location as the present work (fig. 1).

Like the pre-war Tangier pictures, and the important sequence at Mimizan and St Jean de Luz in 1917, the paintings of the Tunisian coast are distinguished by their freshness and vitality. A palette of shrill emeralds and ceruleans, swiftly brushed, prepares us for the côte d'azure seascapes of the following year. Within this group the present example, painted at Hammam-Lïf, to the south of Sidi-bu-Said, now also a suburb of Tunis, presents the viewer with the striking expanse of sea and mountains surrounding the village of Korbous on the far shore. On this peaceful evening, all is calm. A few Arab fishing boats returning to harbour on the left of the picture remind us of the prowess of the ancient Phoenician sailors whose nearby city of Carthage was sacked by Scipio Africanus. Nevertheless, since Roman times, the essential contours which Lavery now recorded had remained unchanged. 

Kenneth McConkey