Charles-Théodore Frère

Private Collection, United States

Panel slightly bowed along top and bottom edges, 4 inch horizontal crack extending from lower right edge visible on reverse; under UV: inpainting along bottom and top edges to address frame abrasion, dots and dashes of inpainting in the sky and to the wall around the archway, dashes of inpainting on right side above and to the group of seated figures, pindots of inpainting in white pigments at lower left edge.
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Charles-Théodore Frère was one of the few French artists to paint Beirut, visiting the city on an extended tour in the Near East from 1851-54. This painting reflects his superb response to eastern light, with the contrast between the delicious coolness of the bazaar, with fruit sellers and a man smoking a hookah, and the dazzling light on the mosque beyond. Frère works in rich blocks of colour, moving the eye across the picture with a trail of reds alternating with ochres, whites and touches of blue. His meticulously-orchestrated, small-scale Orientalist paintings on panel were hugely popular with his French patrons, including Princess Matilde, who owned two paintings entitled Philae Island and A Bedouin encampment.

Strategically located on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Beirut was founded by the Phoenicians and was an important trading place in Greek and Roman times. One of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian, taught at Beirut's celebrated law school in the second century AD; the law school's prestige continued into the Byzantine era. In 635 Beirut fell to the Arabs but was under the control of the Crusaders from 1110 to 1291. It was then conquered by the Mamelukes, becoming part of the Ottoman empire in 1516. Beirut, still ruled by the Ottomans in Frère's day, was a burgeoning, cosmopolitan city with a rich intellectual life and thriving university.