Rudolf Weisse

Sale: Doyle's, New York, 19 May 1983, lot 25
Mathaf Gallery, London
Purchased from the above

London, Mathaf Gallery, Spring Exhibition of Important Orientalist Paintings of the 19th Century, 1984, illustrated in the catalogue

Caroline Juler, Najd Collection of Orientalist Paintings, London, 1991, p. 228, cited, p. 230, catalogued & illustrated

Coffee houses were a popular meeting and social space in Northern Africa in which all classes could mix freely. Indigenous to the Horn of Africa, coffee emerged as a popular drink to be traded and enjoyed in the fifteenth century. By the nineteenth century, Cairo had grown into the most important point of distribution for Yemenite coffee.

Capturing an everyday scene outside a Cairo coffee house, the present example depicts two young girls selling oranges to passers-by, while a group of men, absorbed in a board game, each contemplate their next move.