Sale
17048 - Orientalist Pictures & Works of Art, 11 May 2009
Dubai
Lot No: 63*
Edwin Lord Weeks (American, 1849-1903)
A game of chess
signed and dated 'E.L Weeks. 1879.' (lower left)
oil on canvas
72.5 x 100cm (28 9/16 x 39 3/8in).
Estimate: $400,000 - 600,000
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Contact the Specialist to discuss this lot or sale
Email: Hannah O'Leary
Tel: +44 (0)20 7468 8213
Contact the Specialist to discuss selling in a future
sale
Email: Hannah O'Leary
Tel: +44 (0)20 7468 8213
Footnote:
Along with Frederic Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928), Edwin Lord Weeks is one of the most celebrated American Orientalists. He was born and raised in Boston and in the early 1870s he travelled to Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
He studied under Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) in Paris where he learnt the methods of working en plein air to study the effects of natural light and shadow - ideal training for painting the market scenes and landscapes he was able to make his own.
Weeks visited Morocco in the late 1870s and exhibited the products of his tour in the Paris Salon and at the Royal Academy.
The present lot is one of the finest example of Weeks's Moroccan period. Dating from 1879, it was probably painted in the artist's studio in Paris, which during the 1880s served as the base from which he produced many of the exhibition paintings inspired by his numerous trips to Morocco, India and Turkey.
Weeks concentrated on everyday life and chess players were among his favourite subjects. In his paintings the figures were generally placed against a backdrop of familiar architectural monuments. These astonishing architectural features and the contrasts between the colours of the costumes are characteristics of Weeks's best work.
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