Eugène Baugniès

Private collection, USA

Possibly, Paris, Salon, 1879, no. 179 (as La prière des Derviches au Caire)

The canvas has not been lined. Ultra-violet light reveals some very small scattered spots of cosmetic retouching, some intermittent strokes along the extreme upper edge and one vertical line of retouching addressing an old repair (circa 10cm and patched on the reverse) in the man with a white and red turban in the centre of the composition. The picture is otherwise in good original condition and ready to hang. Presented in a decorative gilt frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Dhikr, meaning 'remembrance', is a form of devotion, associated chiefly with Sufism, in which the worshippers are absorbed in the rhythmic repetition of the name of God or his attributes, often to the accompaniment of music. Baugnies depicts a Sufi ceremony in great detail: a group of men, seated in a semi-circle on straw mats in a mosque courtyard, practice dhikr, entranced by a Sufi mystic and the mesmerizing sound of flute and tambourine. 

Sufism is a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. It consists of a variety of mystical paths that are designed to ascertain the nature of humanity and of God and to facilitate the experience of the presence of divine love and wisdom in the world.

Islamic mysticism is called tasawwuf (literally, 'to dress in wool') in Arabic, but it has been called Sufism in Western languages since the early nineteenth century. The word Sufism derives from the Arabic term for a mystic, ṣūfī, which is in turn derived from ṣūf, 'wool', plausibly a reference to the woollen garment of early Islamic ascetics. The Sufis are also generally known as 'the poor', fuqarā', plural of the Arabic faqīr, in Persian darvīsh, whence the English words fakir and dervish.

Though the roots of Islamic mysticism formerly were supposed to have stemmed from various non-Islamic sources in ancient Europe and even India, it is now believed that the movement grew out of early Islamic asceticism that developed as a counterweight to the increasing worldliness of the expanding Muslim community; only later were foreign elements that were compatible with mystical theology and practices adopted and made to conform to Islam.