LUDWIG DEUTSCH | A MOMENT OF REPOSE

Sale: Sotheby's, London, 24 November 1982, lot 21

Mathaf Gallery, London (purchased at the above sale)

Purchased from the above

Caroline Juler, Najd Collection of Orientalist Paintings, London, 1991, p. 43, cited, p. 44, catalogued & illustrated

Martina Haja & Günther Wimmer, Les Orientalistes des écoles allemandes et autrichiennes, Courbevoie, 2000, p. 217, catalogued & illustrated

This highly emotive portrait of a thinker gazing wistfully into the yonder epitomises Deutsch's mastery at rendering human expression and anatomy. Although his name is unknown, the model appears to be the same as in several of Deutsch's best known works, including The Mandolin Player and The Philosopher (both in the Shafik Gabr Collection; see James Parry, Orientalist Lives: Western Artists in the Middle East 1830-1920, Cairo & New York, p. 161), and other works formerly in the Najd Collection, including The Scribe and The Morning Prayer. In all likelihood, he was a Nubian or Sudanese model residing in Paris. 

With his rigorous attention to detail, Deutsch would certainly have relied upon photographs as study aids while composing his paintings. In fact, he had amassed a notable collection by the 1890s that is known to have bolstered his artistic process. However, unlike a photograph, which manifests itself in a fraction of a second, a painting such as this, which offers the illusion of a snap-shot, took weeks or perhaps months to complete. While crafting the work, the artist imbued his sitter's personality, mien, and anatomy, as well as the setting, with greater depth. The result is an enhanced reality beyond the photographic, which allows the narrative to unfold through the layers of thought and observation that underpin it. 

The setting for this painting was clearly inspired by the Yesil Cami, or Green Mosque, in Bursa, Anatolia, which is famous for its turquoise and green hexagonal tiles. Several Orientalist painters use the same backdrop, with the carved stone balustrade enclosing the raised dais, which also appears in the works of Osman Hamdy Bey and Rudolf Ernst, among others (fig. 1).