- 22
Alberto Pasini
Description
- Alberto Pasini
- Cavalieri Circassi Che Aspettano Il Loro Capo
signed A. Pasini and dated 1880 (lower right)
- oil on canvas
- 22 by 31 in.
- 56 by 79 cm
Provenance
Private Collection, United States (acquired circa 1910)
Private Collection, United States (and sold, Sotheby's, London, October 12, 2000, lot 53, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Literature
A. Giacconi, Le Mostre che si annunciano, L'Orientalista Alberto Pasini, Bianco e Nero, Milan, 1917, p. 300
A. Lancellotti, Rivista delle Colonie, 1943
Vittoria Botteri Cardoso, Alberto Pasini, Geneva, 1991, p. 339, no. 695, illustrated
Catalogue Note
From a distinguished American collection, and handed down in one family from 1910 until its recent sale at Sotheby’s London in 2000, Cavalieri Circassi Che Aspettano Il Loro Capo represents Albert Pasini’s remarkable ability to capture the everyday life and culture of the Middle East. Working in Persia (where he made his first trip to the East in 1855, as part of the French diplomatic expedition of Prosper Bourée) as well as on numerous trips in the 1860s to Turkey, Egypt and Syria, Pasini suffused his colorful landscapes and architecture with rich light. Pasini’s inordinate skills as both a meticulous draughtsman and vibrant colorist are skillfully combined in the present picture.
While the architecture cannot be identified as belonging to a specific setting, the form of the building and the ceramic tile inscription over the central door reading “Allah” seems likely to be based on the courtyards of mosques the artist would have seen in Syria or Egypt, while the figures appear to be Tchetchens, Arabic Bedouins and Turkish soldiers. This can be explained in that Pasini gathered visual details from a wide verity of sources to create his compositions. Though somber in mood as they prepare for their duty of guarding an important personage, Pasini’s intricately detailed figures arrest the eye, set against the bright hues of terracotta rooftops, ceramic tiles, wooden tracery, golden shimmering domes, and a bright blue sky.
European enthusiasm for Orientalist subjects was ignited in the early Nineteenth century with colorfully written tales and travelogues such as Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh of 1817, Lord Byron’s The Corsair of 1814 and, most influential for whetting the European appetite, The Arabian Nights, published in 1840 in an updated and more decorous translation by E. W. Lane, for the first time deemed fit for wide circulation.