Georges Washington

Sale: Sotheby's, London, 13 June 2006, lot 209

Purchased at the above sale by the father of the present owner

Paris, Salon, 1876, no. 2059 (as Retour d'une razzia)

In this monumental work, Washington depicts the return of a raiding party to the walled city of Oued Rhiou in modern-day Algeria, located in the desert between Oran and Algiers. A razzia, referred to in the title, is via French from the Algerian Arabic ġāziya, meaning a raid, especially one carried out by the Berbers and Touaregs in North Africa, for the purposes of conquest, plunder, or the capture of slaves.

Washington was a prolific painter of North African scenes, exhibiting them regularly at the annual Paris Salon from the late 1850s onwards. Like Schreyer and Rousseau, he was inspired by the bravura, dynamic brushstroke, and dramatic palette of Eugène Delacroix. The present work is not only probably Washington's largest painting, filled with movement, it is also one of his most ambitious compositions.