01 Orientalist Painting, Nils Forsberg's Dance of the Almeh, with footnotes #113

Nils Forsberg, Swedish, 1842 - 1934

The Dance of the Almeh

Ooil on canvas

208.3 by 122cm., 82½ by 48¾in.

Private collection

Estimated for 30,000 - 50,000 GBP in October 2022

Almah (Egyptian dancer), was the name of a class of courtesans or female entertainers in Egypt, women educated to sing and recite classical poetry and to discourse wittily. They were educated girls of good social standing, trained in dancing, singing and poetry, present at festivals and entertainments, and hired as mourners at funerals.

The Awalim were first introduced as singers, not dancers-cum-prostitutes, according to Edward William Lane's book, Manner and Costumes of modern Egyptians. Lane additionally wrote that the Almah didn't display herself at all, but sang from behind a screen or from another room at weddings and other respectable festivities. Consequently, the Awalem were not subject to exile in Upper Egypt.  More on Almeh

Nils Forsberg (17 December 1842 – 8 November 1934) was a Swedish painter who lived and worked in Paris for much of his career.

Forsberg was born in a small village called Riseberga, in the province of Scania. The son of a peasant, he spent his early years in farming, then was apprenticed to a house-painter at Göteborg. He made a statue of Minerva which procured for him a government stipend which enabled him to go to Paris in 1867. In Paris he was a student in the atelier of Léon Bonnat. Art historian Richard Muther would later write that Forsberg "became the Swedish Bonnat". 

The siege of Paris, during which he enlisted in the Ambulance Department, afforded him opportunities for studying and sketching the scenes that he observed. In 1877 he exhibited Family of Acrobats before the Circus Director, now in the Gothenburg Museum of Art. This work, which typifies Forsberg's commitment to social reform, shows the influence of the French Realists in its depiction of child labor

In 1888 he received the gold medal at the Salon for his painting The Death of a Hero, now in the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm. The culmination of his ambition to renew traditional history painting with a vigorous contemporary realism, it took him several years to complete, and was inspired by his experiences during the Franco-Prussian War. Afterwards he devoted himself more especially to historical subjects. In 1904 he returned to Sweden. He died in Helsingborg on 8 November 1934. More on Nils Forsberg

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