Joseph van Severdonck

W.M. Brady & Co. Inc., New York

Private collection (purchased from the above)

The sitter in this picture is, by his dress, most likely a member of one of the northern Tuareg confederations, who live in the true Sahara desert country of the Ahaggar or Hoggar Mountains in lower Algeria. As nomads, they wander constantly today over many national boundaries.

Joseph van Severdonck studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels under the Baron Gustave Wappers (1803-1874), the greatest of the Romantic history painters in Belgium. Severdonck was a professor at the Academy from 1865 until 1890, and was also the teacher, and favorite painter, of the Belgian Queen, Marie Henriette. He won the Gold Medal at the Fine Art Expositions of Brussels in 1851, at Ypres in 1855, and at The Hague in 1859. Famous for his history paintings and military subjects, the present work, painted life-size, demonstrates his great abilities as a portraitist from life.