Stanislaus von Chlebowski

Sent by the artist as a gift to Sefer Pasha in Cairo

Bertholdstein Castle (Sefer Pasha's residence in Austria)

Acquired by a private American collection from the heirs of Sefer Pasha in the 1920's

S. Wattenberg, New York, 1944-68

St. Stanczyk, London, 1968-80,

Acquired from the above by a private collector,

Their sale; Sotheby's, London, 16 October 1998, lot 334

Private Collection, until 2025

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Government Loan Exhibition, February-March 1944, no 14, as Mendicants at a Mosque.

This dramatic composition, defined by the striking contrast between bright sunlight and shadow, epitomises Chlebowski’s powers of observation and rigorous draughtsmanship. The resulting image is one which combines a meticulous approach to detail with a dedication to ethnographic accuracy. Chlebowski crucially painted scenes he had witnessed and, in its verisimilitude, the present work displays a remarkable knowledge of, and sensitivity to, Ottoman culture.

Dervishes in Islam were members of a Sufi fraternity, religious mendicants who chose or accepted material poverty. Their lives were dedicated to the universal values of love and service, and on the renunciation of ego to reach God, and the alms they received were not for their own good but to help others in need. In most Sufi orders, a dervish was known to practice the ritual prayer of dhikr through dance or religious practices to attain the ecstatic trance to reach God. Their most popular practice was Sama, which is associated with the thirteenth-century mystic Rumi. In folklore, dervishes are often credited with the ability to perform miracles, including healing powers.

In the present work, a dervish is accompanied by a young assistant holding a kashkul, or beggar’s bowl. Considered to be the most emblematic accoutrement of the wandering dervish, kashkuls were primarily used to collect alms and occasionally as drinking vessels. In later centuries, many functioned as decorative objects since a devoted dervish would be unlikely to carry an elaborately carved kashkul as it would contradict his belief in the renunciation of worldly goods.

Chlebowski was born in Podolia, the Ukraine, and began his artistic training at the St. Petersburg Academy. He first travelled to Munich before moving to Paris where he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme. Chlebowski went on to be appointed Court Painter to the Ottoman empire by the Sultan Abdülaziz sometime after 1864. He was tasked with depicting the chief wars and battles in Ottoman history and, at the end of his term, was rewarded with the medal of the Order of Mecidiye, third class. Other notable artists who held this position were Ivan Aivazovsky and Pierre Désiré Guillemet.

Like his friend and teacher Gérôme, Chlebowski made multiple studies from nature; in Turkey and Egypt he drew and painted when walking the streets and when he returned to Paris he drew inspiration from a large collection of oriental craftwork.