FREDERICK ARTHUR BRIDGMAN | Women of Blidah on the Day of the Prophet

Sale: Christie's, London, 17 November 1994, lot 15
Sale: Gros & Delettrez, Paris, 13 December 2010, lot 27
Private collection, UK (sale: Sotheby's, London, 8 April 2014, lot 13)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Possibly, Buffalo, New York, Pan-American Exhibition, 1901, no. 218 (as Religious Fete at Blidah)
Nice, Société des Beaux-Arts (label on the reverse)

Lynne Thornton, Women as Portrayed in Orientalist Painting, Paris, 1985, p. 108, illustrated

The canvas has not been lined. There is some fine, scattered craquelure, notably in the upper half of the composition, that appears to be stable. A stretcher bar mark corresponding to the horizontal stretcher member is also visible. Ultraviolet light reveals notably two circa 4cm vertical repaired tears (each patched on the reverse), one in the lower part of the standing figure's robes, the other in the beige shawl of the seated woman in the lower right quadrant, including some other spots and small strokes of retouching. Under U.V. light there are also some areas of green fluorescence relating to the old residual varnish layers. Presented in an elaborate, richly ornamented 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."

The Day of the Prophet, known as Mawlid, is celebrated on either the twelfth or seventeenth day of Rabia al Awal, the third month of the Muslim calendar, roughly coinciding with January. Mawlid also provided a framework for female involvement. Women often participated in the celebrations outside the mosque rituals. The present work shows a congregation of women dressed in their ritual drapery. It was painted a year after Bridgman's larger work of the same subject, depicting Algerian women burning candles in the cemetry of Oued El-Kebir outside Blidah, in Algeria.