01 Orientalist Painting, Edwin Lord Weeks' Three Moorish princesses, with footnotes, #119

Edwin Lord Weeks (American, 1849-1903)

Interior of La Torre des Infantas, illustrating the legend of the three Moorish princesses, c. 1881-82

Oil on canvas laid down on board

32 x 39½ in. (81.3 x 100.3 c

Private collection

One of the best known legends of the Alhambra was that of the three captive princesses, in which a tyrannical Moorish king fathered beautiful triplet daughters, Zayda, Zorayda, and Zorahayda, by his young Spanish wife, whose Christianity he had forced her to renounce. To protect them from suitors when they became of "a marriagable age," as Irving describes it, the king imprisoned the three princesses in a tower in a palatial room, connected to the world beyond only by a window with a view across a ravine toward the gardens of the Generalife on a nearby hill. Entranced by three captive Christian Spanish cavaliers, whom they could see from their window, the princesses eventually conspired with their duenna to elope with the virile and handsome young men, as they themselves fled their Muslim captors. At the last moment, one princess decided to remain behind, as her two sisters lowered themselves out of the great window on a rope ladder and galloped off with their suitors to a new life in Christian Spain. Tragically, the third princess, too timid to join her sisters in escape, pined away in the tower and died at an early age. More on this painting

Edwin Lord Weeks (1849 – 1903) was an American artist. Weeks was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1849. His parents were affluent spice and tea merchants from Newton, a suburb of Boston, and as such they were able to finance their son's youthful interest in painting and travelling. As a young man Weeks visited the Florida Keys to draw, and also travelled to Surinam in South America. His earliest known paintings date from 1867 when he was eighteen years old, although it is not until his Landscape with Blue Heron, dated 1871 and painted in the Everglades, that Weeks started to exhibit a dexterity of technique and eye for composition—presumably having taken professional tuition.

In 1872 Weeks relocated to Paris, becoming a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme. After his studies in Paris, Weeks emerged as one of America's major painters of Orientalist subjects. Throughout his adult life he was an inveterate traveler and journeyed to South America (1869), Egypt and Persia (1870), Morocco (frequently between 1872 and 1878), and India (1882–83).

Weeks died in Paris in November 1903.[2] He was a member of the Légion d'honneur, France, an officer of the Order of St. Michael, Germany, and a member of the Munich Secession. More on Edwin Lord Weeks

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01 Orientalist Painting, Georg Macco's Bab Zuwayla, Cairo, with footnotes, #118

Georg Macco (German, 1863-1933)

The Orange Seller, Outside Bab Zuwayla, Cairo, c. 1907

Oil on canvas

19 x 28½ in. (48.3 x 72.4 cm.)

Private collection

In the present painting the stand of the orange seller is placed just outside the Bab Zuwayla, the Southern Gate of Cairo's Fatimid enclosure. Looking in through the archway, on the right one can see the Sabil-Kuttab of Nafisa Bayda (1796). On the left, there is an indistinct rendering of the facade of the Mosque-Mausoleum of Sultan Mu'ayyad, 1415-20. 

Its name comes from Bab, meaning "gate", and Zuwayla, as its in the Western Gate of the city that had a trade route for overland travelers. More on this painting

Bab Zuweila is one of three remaining gates in the walls of the Old City of Cairo. It was also known as Bawabbat al-Mitwali during the Ottoman period. It is considered one of the major landmarks of the city and is the last remaining southern gate from the walls of Shia Islamic Fatimid Cairo in the 11th and 12th century. More on Bab Zuweila 

Nafisa al-Bayda began her life as a slave and then was married in the mid 1700s to a man of power in the state named Ali Bey. Afterwards, she married the wealthy Murad Bey who was at first a Mamluk, but then later rose to power in 1784 and became the leader of the resistance against the Napoleon Bonaparte invasion.

Lady Nafisa al-Bayda, meaning the white one, was a woman of beauty, wealth, charity and known to be of great culture. She is also a symbol for womens participation in those days to the political life. During her husbands resistance, she played a major role in helping him acting as an intermediate between him and Napoleon. More on Lady Nafisa al-Bayda

Georg Macco (23 March 1863, Aachen - 20 April 1933, Genoa) was a German landscape painter and illustrator, associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. He is primarily known for his Orientalist works.

He was inspired by stories of his great-great-uncle, the history and portrait painter Alexander Macco, who painted a portrait of the Queen of Prussia and was a close friend of Beethoven and Goethe. His artistic career began at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 188o, where he studied with Eugen Dücker and Johann Peter Theodor Janssen until 1887. During this time, he also contributed illustrations to Die Gartenlaube and drawings of coats-of-arms for his brother, Hermann Friedrich Macco, who was an historian and genealogist.

He moved to Munich to further his studies and used that city as a base for his numerous travels, beginning with mountainous regions from Italy to Spitsbergen. Later, he travelled throughout the Mediterranean region, visiting such then-exotic locations as Istanbul, Baalbek, Jerusalem, Cairo and the vicinity of Mecca. The works he produced as a result of these travels would eventually become his most popular and sought after.

His works may be seen at the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, the Rudolfinum in Prague and the Alpines Museum in Munich. Some of his works in Aachen were previously on the "Schattengalerie" (shadow gallery) list of works looted by the Nazis during World War II. Other works, not yet displayed, have been uncovered at the Simferopol Art Museum. More on Georg Macco

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01 Orientalist Painting, Gustav Bauernfeind' Recruiting of Turkish Soldiers in Palestine, with footnotes, #117

Gustav Bauernfeind (German, 1848–1904)

Jaffa, Recruiting of Turkish Soldiers in Palestine, c. 1888

Oil on canvas

58 1/2 x 110 1/4 in.

The Dahesh Museum of Art

These actual events inspired Baurnfeind’s painting the present picture, a panoramic scene that extends from the closely observed crumbling seawall at left to the ocean vista on the right, anchored in the middle by a trading ship whose sail is emblazoned with the Islamic crescent. On the seawall, Ottoman officers in modern uniform meet with a man, perhaps the provincial bureaucrat in charge of Jaffa’s conscription. By the late 19th century, the Ottoman army had been reorganized along European lines into a professional corps manned by volunteers and conscripts. Non-Muslims were allowed to pay a tax in lieu of military service. Muslims could buy exemption as well, but only at a very high price. It is likely that the desperate conscripts depicted here, some of whom are trying unsuccessfully to escape from the small boats taking them to the steamship in the distance, are poor Muslims unable to afford the exemption. More on this painting

Gustav Bauernfeind (4 September 1848, Sulz am Neckar - 24 December 1904, Jerusalem) was a German painter, illustrator and architect. He is considered to be one of the most notable Orientalist painters of Germany.

After completing his architectural studies in Stuttgart, he worked in the architectural firm of Professor Wilhelm Bäumer and later in that of Adolph Gnauth, where he also learned painting. In his earlier paintings, Bauernfeind focused on local views of Germany, as well as motifs from Italy. During his journey to the Levant from 1880 to 1882, he became interested in the Orient and repeated his travels again and again. In 1896 he moved with his wife and son all the way to Palestine and subsequently settled in Jerusalem in 1898. He also lived and worked in Lebanon and Syria.

His work is characterized primarily by architectural views of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The paintings of Bauernfeind are mostly meticulously crafted, intricately composed and almost photographically accurate cityscapes and images of known sanctuaries in oil. In addition, he produced landscape scenes and watercolours. During his lifetime he was the most popular Orientalist painter of Germany, but soon fell into oblivion after his death. However, since the early 1980s, Bauernfeind was gradually rediscovered. At his birthplace in Sulz am Neckar, the life and work of the painter is commemorated by the Gustav Bauernfeind Museum with a large permanent exhibition. More Gustav Bauernfeind

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01 Orientalist Painting, Georges Rochegrosse's IDLE MOMENTS, with footnotes

Georges Rochegrosse, 1859 - 1938, FRENCH

IDLE MOMENTS, c. 1888

Oil on canvas

54 by 65cm., 21¼ by 25¾in.

Private collection

Georges Antoine Rochegrosse (2 August 1859 – 7 November 1938) was a French historical and decorative painter.

He was born in Versailles and studied in Paris with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger. His themes are generally historical, and he treated them on a colossal scale and in an emotional naturalistic style, with a distinct revelling in horrible subjects and details.

He made his Paris Salon début in 1882 with Vitellis traîné dans les rues de Rome par la populace (Vitellius dragged through the streets of Rome by the people) (1882; Sens). He followed this the year afterwards with Andromaque (1882–83; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen), which won that year's prestigious Prix du Salon. There followed La Jacquerie (1885; Untraced), Le mort de Babylone (The fall of Babylon) (1891; Untraced), The death of the Emperor Geta (1899; Musée de Picardie, Amiens), and Barbarian ambassadors at the Court of Justinian (1907; Untraced), all of which exemplify his strong and spirited but sensational and often brutal painting. In quite another style and beautiful in colour is his Le Chevalier aux Fleurs (The Knight of Flowers) (1894; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; RF 898).

He was elected an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1892 and received the Medal of Honour in 1906 for The Red Delight. Rochegrosse also illustrated several books. Some of the drawings for these illustrations are in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, London. He lived his final years in Algeria, but returned to Paris where he died and is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery. His wife, Marie Rochegrosse (née Leblond), had died in 1920. More on Georges Antoine Rochegrosse

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01 Orientalist Painting, Guillaume Seignac's Odalisque, with footnotes, #115

Guillaume Seignac, 1870 - 1924, FRENCH

Detail; Odalisque

Oil on canvas

55.5 by 46.5cm., 22 by 18¼in

Private collection

Guillaume Seignac, 1870 - 1924, FRENCH

Odalisque

Oil on canvas

55.5 by 46.5cm., 22 by 18¼in

Private collection

An odalisque was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the eroticized artistic genre in which a woman is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position, often in the setting of a harem. More on An odalisque

Guillaum Seignac (1870–1924) was a French academic painter. He was born in Rennes in 1870, and died in Paris in 1924. He started training at the Académie Julian in Paris, where he spent 1889 through 1895. He had many teachers there, including Gabriel Ferrier, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Tony Robert-Fleury. In addition to his training in the academic style, much of Seignac's work displayed classical themes and style, for example, his use of diaphanous drapery covering a woman's body is reminiscent of classical style, in particular the sculptor Phidias. In 1897, Guillaume Seignac regularly exhibited at the Salon and won several honors, including in 1900 honorable mention and in 1903 a Third Class medal. More on Guillaum Seignac

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