Kees van Dongen

Galérie Europe, Paris (acquired by 1967)
Galerie Taménaga, Paris
Acquired from the above circa 1996

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Van Dongen, 1949
O'Hana Galleries, London, Paintings and Sculpture of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1962

Louis Chaumeil, Van Dongen: L'Homme et l'artiste, la vie et l'oeuvre, Geneva, 1967, illustrated pl. 108

This work is in good condition. The work is lined. The surface is clean. There are some very thin stable lines of hairline craquelure in the foreground and in the green pigment to the right of the donkey. Under UV light numerous areas of craquelure fluoresce. Otherwise fine.
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Van Dongen was a self-taught artist who independently developed a unique style and greatly influenced the Fauves, bringing together vibrant colors and vigorously rendered painterly forms.

After a successful exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune in 1908, van Dongen was signed to the gallery. His new-found success allowed him to travel beyond Montmartre, the area that had provided him with such a wealth of inspiration. In 1909 he moved to Montparnasse and, in the winter of 1910, used his increasing financial stability to finance a trip to Spain and North Africa.

Van Dongen’s visit to Egypt in 1913 resulted in a number of paintings depicting natives and their surroundings. Au désert Égyptien or Scène orientale is a wonderful example from this period, depicting two figures with their small herd of camels in the Egyptian desert. The line between sand dunes and the horizon is blurred, giving the impression of great heat, and the beautiful varied tones of blue in the background lend a sense of elegance and still serenity to the scene.

Like the garish world of entertainment, the exotic and the oriental had a particular appeal to the young artist. At a time of colonialist expansion into the Islamic countries of North Africa and the Near East, the European fascination with arts and culture of the Orient was at a height. Employing his characteristic bold palette and style of execution, provocatively van Gogen combined Orientalist themes with twentieth-century vanguard painting.