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Lot Essay
This lavish, heretofore unseen, painting of figures and animals before a grand Moroccan bazaar gate is a masterwork from Weeks’ Moroccan period, which dominated his oeuvre during the late 1870s and very early 1880s. Possibly in Tangier or Rabat (where Weeks frequently painted) and brilliantly theatrical in arrangement, it features a massive architectural wall in the composition, in shadow, arranged by Weeks typically on the diagonal. This is to draw the eye more deeply into the scene and is meant to contrast sharply with the sunlit figures and animals in front of it. The painting is full of complex decorative detail but allows visual relief in the upper-right corner with a bright cobalt sky and egrets flying about. There is a caravansary to the left side showing camels being let inside for a rest with a dark yellow checked awning overhanging the crenellated arched opening.
To the right of the bazaar gate is a plain, high blank wall with blind arches, typically denoting a bazaar in the interior. Above the highly decorative central portal of the bazaar are colorful friezes, painted and tiled motifs, and calligraphy in receding panels stretching from above the doorway up to the tiled roof. Weeks grew famous as a ‘colorist’, and it is in this– as throughout the painting– wherein he exhibits these dominant artistic inclinations.
In this particular mise-en-scene occurs a special Weeks Orientalist attraction: a noble Arab figure on horseback swathed in white and red robes, perhaps a Bashaw, examines for purchase a long barreled rifle ostensibly presented to him by the richly dressed Arab figure in blue and red standing in front of the buyer’s horse. This is the main focus and center of the composition. The horses and other figures frame the event. The prince is seen carefully examining the rifle’s mechanism. His horse is adorned in resplendent gilt trappings over its head and chest, apparently gold brocade. Such elements as these were always a vehicle for Weeks to demonstrate his remarkable work in detailing and reflection. The gun transaction recalls a well-known Weeks Moroccan painting titled 'The Arab Gunsmith', reproduced in Vance Jordan’s monograph of 2002 by Ulrich W. Hiesinger as Edwin Lord Weeks, Visions of India. It shares in common with the present painting a royally dressed figure examining another long rifle.
The remaining prominent figure in the foreground of the present painting is an elderly shoeless Arab humbly dressed in cotton robes with glowing saffron textiles over his arm holding aloft a bright gilt vessel for sale, seemingly an oil lamp. It is an object of curious attention lit by the sun and is at the center of the dark portal to the bazaar. To the center-right of the gathering is seen a brilliant white horse with red velvet saddle in side view and dappled hind quarters–a favorite model of Weeks in his Moroccan work. This white horse also recollects the central horse in Weeks’ famous Paris Salon painting of 1880, 'Gate of the Ancient Fondak in the Holy City of Salé, Morocc'”, and the model for the horse is rendered separately in Weeks’ estate sale of 1905 (Lot 70).
All this is intended as a backdrop to frame the activity before it, seen in bright sunshine, as one would see in front of the spotlights in a theatre. This arrangement of animate activity seen before an elaborate architectural backdrop is characteristic of the tendencies of the work of other major Orientalist painters at the time, notably Gerome and Pasini. In Weeks’ case, however, it becomes predominant in a great deal of his work in Morocco and, later, in India. This painting has the ineffable quality of an operatic stage scene; in another life Weeks could have become an extraordinary set designer.
This painting is a complex work full of vignettes of seated and standing figures in cotton dress outside the walls endowing the scene with an additional degree of naturalism. The oft-appearing sleeping dog in the lower-right corner of the painting offers an added touch of realism to the scene and suggests the hot sun and lazy afternoon typical of the region. All of these details in the painting prove Weeks’ famed reputation as a ‘realist’ artist, a quality which endowed this work and others with absolute believability, even though it may have originated in many separate studies in oil which the artist painted during his travels. Weeks’ uncanny ability is to weave such studies into an amalgam of a credible scene of the highest artistic merit. In all probability these many components were brought together in the artist’s Paris studio, circa 1880. His greatest gift was to endow all of his conjoined preliminary work- to the eye– seen as an in situ artistic whole. That is how we see and appreciate this remarkable painting.
We are grateful to Dr. Ellen Morris for confirming the authenticity of this work and providing the catalogue note. This work will be included in the Edwin Lord Weeks catalogue raisonné currently in preparation.
To the right of the bazaar gate is a plain, high blank wall with blind arches, typically denoting a bazaar in the interior. Above the highly decorative central portal of the bazaar are colorful friezes, painted and tiled motifs, and calligraphy in receding panels stretching from above the doorway up to the tiled roof. Weeks grew famous as a ‘colorist’, and it is in this– as throughout the painting– wherein he exhibits these dominant artistic inclinations.
In this particular mise-en-scene occurs a special Weeks Orientalist attraction: a noble Arab figure on horseback swathed in white and red robes, perhaps a Bashaw, examines for purchase a long barreled rifle ostensibly presented to him by the richly dressed Arab figure in blue and red standing in front of the buyer’s horse. This is the main focus and center of the composition. The horses and other figures frame the event. The prince is seen carefully examining the rifle’s mechanism. His horse is adorned in resplendent gilt trappings over its head and chest, apparently gold brocade. Such elements as these were always a vehicle for Weeks to demonstrate his remarkable work in detailing and reflection. The gun transaction recalls a well-known Weeks Moroccan painting titled 'The Arab Gunsmith', reproduced in Vance Jordan’s monograph of 2002 by Ulrich W. Hiesinger as Edwin Lord Weeks, Visions of India. It shares in common with the present painting a royally dressed figure examining another long rifle.
The remaining prominent figure in the foreground of the present painting is an elderly shoeless Arab humbly dressed in cotton robes with glowing saffron textiles over his arm holding aloft a bright gilt vessel for sale, seemingly an oil lamp. It is an object of curious attention lit by the sun and is at the center of the dark portal to the bazaar. To the center-right of the gathering is seen a brilliant white horse with red velvet saddle in side view and dappled hind quarters–a favorite model of Weeks in his Moroccan work. This white horse also recollects the central horse in Weeks’ famous Paris Salon painting of 1880, 'Gate of the Ancient Fondak in the Holy City of Salé, Morocc'”, and the model for the horse is rendered separately in Weeks’ estate sale of 1905 (Lot 70).
All this is intended as a backdrop to frame the activity before it, seen in bright sunshine, as one would see in front of the spotlights in a theatre. This arrangement of animate activity seen before an elaborate architectural backdrop is characteristic of the tendencies of the work of other major Orientalist painters at the time, notably Gerome and Pasini. In Weeks’ case, however, it becomes predominant in a great deal of his work in Morocco and, later, in India. This painting has the ineffable quality of an operatic stage scene; in another life Weeks could have become an extraordinary set designer.
This painting is a complex work full of vignettes of seated and standing figures in cotton dress outside the walls endowing the scene with an additional degree of naturalism. The oft-appearing sleeping dog in the lower-right corner of the painting offers an added touch of realism to the scene and suggests the hot sun and lazy afternoon typical of the region. All of these details in the painting prove Weeks’ famed reputation as a ‘realist’ artist, a quality which endowed this work and others with absolute believability, even though it may have originated in many separate studies in oil which the artist painted during his travels. Weeks’ uncanny ability is to weave such studies into an amalgam of a credible scene of the highest artistic merit. In all probability these many components were brought together in the artist’s Paris studio, circa 1880. His greatest gift was to endow all of his conjoined preliminary work- to the eye– seen as an in situ artistic whole. That is how we see and appreciate this remarkable painting.
We are grateful to Dr. Ellen Morris for confirming the authenticity of this work and providing the catalogue note. This work will be included in the Edwin Lord Weeks catalogue raisonné currently in preparation.