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Dimensions: 67 by 80cm., 26¼ by 31½in.

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Provenance: Sale: Claude Aguttes, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 19 December 2002, lot 133
Mathaf Gallery Ltd., London

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Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, 1910, no. 521 (as Spain in the Days of the Moors)

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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
A colourfully-dressed young woman gazes at reflections in a crystalline pool, in a verdant courtyard similar to those in the Alhambra in Spain. Bridgman's introduction to Oriental taste came in 1872 when he moved from Paris to the Pyrenees and came into contact with the bright Mediterranean light and Moorish heritage of Spain, the inspiration for the present work. Bridgman's subjects, while infused with the light and colour of the Orient, were nevertheless founded on his academic training in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme. In true academic fashion, his finished paintings were worked up from sketches made on the spot, and the present work, with its minutely observed architectural detail, would have been no exception. An exhibition in New York of over three hundred works by Bridgman at the American Art Gallery in 1881 included finished canvases, but the major part of the exhibition consisted of sketches, praised for their 'frankness, their fidelity, their freshness, their beauty.'

Embracing a more naturalistic aesthetic, Bridgman's later works such as the present display a freer technique, featuring more light and intense colour. In 1899 a critic wrote: 'Mr. Bridgman now paints with a freer, juicier brush than he used some years ago, he has got almost entirely away from Gérôme, his is no longer photographic, his colour [...] is often more ingeniously applied, and like so many of his fellows he is aiming for decorative effect' ('Gallery and Studio: Frederick A. Bridgman's Recent Pictures', Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22 January 1899, p. 28, as quoted in Ilene Susan Fort, Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American Fascination with the Exotic Near East, vol. I and II, Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1990, p. 429).