Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova

Her two trips to Morocco in 1928 and 1932 were some of the happiest and most productive periods of Zinaida Serebriakova’s career. The impression that the country made on her is evident in the superb body of work she produced there; in the fresh, immediacy of the landscape sketches and the tenderness of her intimate pastel portraits. She was not the first artist to leave France for North Africa and find inspiration in the light, colour and landscape of these lands but unlike the host of male artists and writers who had gone before her there is no suggestion of exoticism in her depictions of the people and landscape, only the sheer of joy of discovery. Her portraits of women and children are among the best she produced but with 'none of those brash dolls of the souq that Matisse called ‘odalisques', as the critic Camille Mauclair said of those she exhibited on her return at the extremely well-received solo show at the Galerie Charpentier.

The present lot is accompanied by an authenticity certificate from the Zinaida Serebriakova Foundation.