Jean-Baptiste Huysmans

Huysmans's paintings show the deepest respect for some of the Middle East's most distinctive cultural traditions, in this case the daily sequence of five prayers. Muslim ritual is shown as a healthy, communal expression of shared culture, whether in the mosque, en route to Mecca or, as here, on the roof of a home in Cairo.

By choosing an uncluttered open-air setting, Huysmans gave expression to what many Western painters encountering it for the first time most admired about Islam: its emphasis on the upon the word of God and the relative unimportance of its clergy in mediating that word. The decorously attired figures in Huysmans's picture exhibit the various stages of the prayer, adopting the different postures which comprise the first raka, from the initial standing Qiyam to the last prostrate Sajda.

Huysmans's interest in Islamic culture was first fired by his tour of the Middle East in 1856. In Turkey, Syria, Algeria, and Egypt, he had ample opportunity to study and observe Islamic architecture and prayer at first hand. While in Jerusalem, as well as sketching Muslim sites, he was commissioned to paint religious works to decorate numerous churches. Born in Antwerp, he trained at Antwerp Academy, becoming a leading member of the Belgian school of Orientalists which also included Jean-François Portaels (lot 9).