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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

OUTSIDE THE PALACE

25.5 by 41cm., 10 by 16in.

signed A Pasini l.r.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Knoedler and Co., New York
Private Collection, USA

NOTE

Pasini's initial training was in Parma but he later moved to Paris to study under Eugène Ciceri and Eugène Isabey. In Paris he learned how to incorporate elements of light and colour in his art. It was Théodore Chasseriau though who introduced Pasini to the Orient by arranging for him to accompany a French legislation to Persia in 1855. There he spent a year painting the people, local customs and landscape. Fascinated with the Orient he later travelled to Egypt in 1860, Constantinople between 1867 and 1869, and to Asia Minor and Syria in 1873.

The Orient was a major preoccupation among nineteenth century artists. As art historian James Thompson claimed, the East was 'imagined, experienced, remembered.' Although the French were great exponents of Orientalist genre, the theme fascinated artists from across Europe and America.

In the centre of the present composition Pasini has depicted a group of women in colourful dress entering the gates of a palace. The bright colours of their clothing contrast with the sombre browns and greys of the men's dress. Pasini was fascinated with architecture and often incorporated architectural elements in his work. According to James Thompson "If one tried to isolate a single motif which seems to recur most frequently in Pasini's work it would probably be the door or archway. For many artists the essential experience of the East was one of waiting, and what Pasini's doorway scenes often appear to suggest is a kind of peaceful interlude between things happening." (James Thompson, The East, Dublin, 1998, p.125)

The present work was with Knoedler at the turn of the century. Founded in 1848, Knoedler's was the New York branch of Goupil, Vibert and Cie, the Paris art dealers who specialized in Continental Paintings. Goupil, an established family firm was one of the first art dealers to take advantage of a newly sophisticated group of American collectors by opening in New York, until then dominated by dealers in American and English art. The Orientalist works by artists including Pasini and Jean-Léon Gérôme were some of the firm's most successful exports to a growing American audience.