Lot 2151 D α

The Russian genre and portrait painter Konstantin Makovsky enjoyed great international recognition during his lifetime. He spent most of his career in Russia, but also worked for long periods in Paris and the United States. He exhibited his works at several world fairs, including the Paris fair of 1889, where he was awarded a gold medal. One of his further privileges in France was that he was allowed to participate in the exhibitions of the Paris Salon without permission from the jury.
Makovsky travelled to North Africa several times throughout the 1870s, being one of only very few Russian painters to do so. The present work, painted in Paris in 1882, was probably created in memory of one of these journeys.
We would like to thank Dr Elena Nesterova for confirming this painting to be the work of Konstantin Makowski upon examination of high-resolution photographs.