Cairo – Zaidan Gallery

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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22 Works, Today, June 14th. is John Frederick Lewis’ day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #162

John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876)
A Syrian Sheik, Egypt, c. 1856
Oil on panel
H 43.1 x W 30.4 cm
The Fitzwilliam Museum

Leaving Rome early in 1840, Lewis travelled to Constantinople, seeing Albania, Corfu, Athens and Smyrna en route. He spent the best part of a year in the Levant, but in November 1841, at the age of thirty-six, he sailed for Egypt.

John Frederick Lewis RA (London 14 July 1804–15 August 1876) was a British Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes. He lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and after his return to England in 1851 he specialized in highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper-class Egyptian interiors with little apparent Western influence…

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Raphael von Ambros, TOBACCO SELLER, CAIRO 01 Painting by the Orientalist Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, with footnotes, 68

Von Ambros depicts a busy tobacco stall outside a coffee shop in the streets of Cairo. On the left, two young men roll cigarettes which have been neatly hung by the merchant on his stall. On the right, a customer samples a cigarette, pondering a purchase. Above the stall on a shelf stand five glass narghile, or hookah vessels. Water pipes were an alternative method of tobacco consumption introduced to the Middle east and Europe from India. More on this painting

Born in Prague, Raphael von Ambros was a pupil of Hans Makart (1840-1884) at the famous Vienna Academy, where he would have studied alongside an extraordinary generation of Orientalist painters such as Jean Discart (French, 1856-1944), Ludwig Deutsch (1855-1935) and Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932). Like his contemporaries, Ambros found the perfect audience for his Cairo street scenes at the Paris Salon, where he exhibited from 1887. More on Raphael von Ambros

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Kamel Moustafa, Cairo Street Scene 01 Paintings, MODERN & CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EASTERN ART, With Footnotes – 2a

Kamel Moustafa

Kamel Moustafa, (Egypt, 1917-1982)

Cairo Street Scene

oil on board, signed lower left

48 x 49cm (18 7/8 x 19 5/16in)

Private collection

Although this work is undated it has been suggested that it was executed in the early 1950s.

Kamel Moustafa belongs to the second generation of Modern Egyptian artists who sit between the Pioneers such as Mahmoud Said, Youssef Kamel and Mohammed Naghi and the Surrealists, Abdul Hadi El-Gazzar, Samir Rafi and Hamed Nada.

Following the 1952 revolution this new group of artists found themselves operating in a new window of freedom whose aim was to express national personality through symbolism. They emphasised the aesthetics of the new Egyptian society, which for the first time had managed to break away from foreign rule, local nepotism and privileged society.

The artist was born and studied in Alexandria where his talent was first recognized. He was later encouraged by Mahmoud Said to join the Cairo School of Fine Arts in 1936 and graduated five years later. From 1936 the artist spent ten years working in Cairo painting a wide-range of subjects in an impressionist style including traditional scenes from the city and rural life; weddings, souks, markets, folk dances and other elements of traditional Egyptian life.

Between 1946 and 1950 Moustafa travelled to Italy for further study, returning in the early 1950s to resume his work until his death in Alexandria in 1982. More on Kamel Moustafa

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Raphael von Ambros, THE BAKER’S SHOP, CAIRO 01 Paintings by the Orientalist Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, with footnotes, 36

Raphael von Ambros

Raphael von Ambros, 1845-1895, AUSTRIAN

THE BAKER’S SHOP, CAIRO, c. 1889

Oil on panel

38.5 by 47cm., 15¼ by 18½in.

Private collection

Von Ambros established his reputation as a masterful observer of scenes of everyday life in Cairo, painted with the greatest attention to verisimilitude and detail.

Here, a woman wearing a black niqāb and a lapis lazuli necklace serves refreshments of freshly baked Egyptian flat bread known as aish baladi and bowls of milk or water bread to passers-by. Opening on to the street, her stall offers other local produce, including eggs and vegetables.

Von Ambros settled in Paris where he found a ready market for his Egyptian subjects. Inspired by his first hand observations during his travels, he was aided by sketches and no doubt by photography. More on this painting

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Raphael von Ambros, MERCHANT BEFORE THE SABIL OF NAFISA AL-BAYDA, CAIRO 01 Paintings by the Orientalist Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, with footnotes, 20

Raphael von Ambros

Raphael von Ambros, 1845-1895, AUSTRIAN

MERCHANT BEFORE THE SABIL OF NAFISA AL-BAYDA, CAIRO

Oil on panel

46 by 31cm., 18 by 12¼in.

Private collection

This Ottoman building built by Nafisa al-Bayda dates back to the year of 1796 AD.

Born in Prague, Raphael von Ambros was a pupil of Hans Makart (1840-1884) at the famous Vienna Academy, where he would have studied alongside an extraordinary generation of Orientalist painters such as Jean Discart (French, 1856-1944), Ludwig Deutsch (1855-1935) and Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932). Like his contemporaries, Ambros found the perfect audience for his Cairo street scenes at the Paris Salon, where he exhibited from 1887. More on Raphael von Ambros

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, and The Canals of Venice

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don’t own any of these images – credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

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Frederick Arthur Bridgman, 1847 – 1928, AMERICAN Almeh Flirting With An Armenian Policeman in Cairo 01 Paintings, The amorous game, Part 18 – With Footnotes

Frederick Arthur Bridgman, 1847 – 1928, AMERICAN

Almeh Flirting With An Armenian Policeman in Cairo

Oil on canvas

55.5 cm (21.85 in.), Width: 46 cm (18.11 in.)

Private collection

Almeh (Egyptian Arabic) was the name of a class of courtesans or female entertainers in Arab Egypt, women educated to sing and recite classical poetry and to discourse wittily, connected to the qayna slave singers of pre-Islamic Arabia. 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.

In the 19th century, almeh came to be used as a synonym of ghawazi, the erotic dancers of Dom ethnicity whose performances were banned in 1834 by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. As a result of the ban, the ghawazi dancers were forced to pretend that they were in fact awalim. Transliterated into French as almée, the term came to be synonymous with “belly dancer” in European Orientalism of the 19th century. More on Almeh

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (November 10, 1847 – 1928) was an American artist, born in Tuskegee, Alabama. The son of a physician, Bridgman would become one of the United States’ most well-known and well-regarded painters and become known as one of the world’s most talented “Orientalist” painters. He began as a draughtsman in New York City, for the American Bank Note Company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design; but he went to Paris in 1866 and became a pupil of Jean-Leon Gerome. Paris then became his headquarters. A trip to Egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the East that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, in the Paris Salon (1877), bought by James Gordon Bennett, brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Other paintings by him were An American Circus in Normandy, Procession of the Bull Apis (now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and a Rumanian Lady (in the Temple collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). More on Frederick Arthur Bridgman

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01 Paintings by the Orientalist Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, with footnotes, 19

Charles Wilda, 1854 – 1907, GERMAN

A SOUK IN CAIRO, c. 1887

Oil on panel

63 by 47cm., 25 by 18½in.

Private collection

Open air markets in Old Cairo are called a “souk” in Arabic. You’ll find these types of markets in all Middle Eastern countries. The tradition of buying and selling, haggling and bargaining among the crowds has being going on for centuries already.

Charles Wilda (born December 20, 1854 in Vienna as Karl Wilda , † June 11, 1907 ibid) was an Austrian painter of Viennese Orientalism . Wilda studied as a pupil of the painter Leopold Carl Müller at the Vienna Academy . He belonged to the center of Austrian Oriental painting.

In his paintings, the daily life in Cairo, where he frequented, played the most important role. His paintings have titles such as “The Snake Charmer” or “The Storyteller”. In 1892 he undertook an Egyptian journey with the same-age sculptor Arthur Strasser.

Since 1880s, he exhibited almost regularly at the Vienna Annual Exhibition , the Berlin International Art Exhibition , the Munich Annual Exhibition or the Dresden International Art Exhibition . At the Paris World Exposition in 1900 he was well represented with some of his works.

The tomb of Charles Wilda at the Vienna Central Cemetery, designed by Hella Unger, 1909. More on Charles Wilda

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