This superb painting is wholly characteristic of Weeks' compositional and narrative techniques. The convergent diagonals of the richly colored walls of wood and stone draw the eye to the unforced narrative of the chess players, with its textures and colors of costume, garments and fittings - all characteristic of Week's best work. Yet it is also a rare example in his oeuvre of an entire scene depicted in the diffused half-light of shade rather than the brilliant sunlight and shadow so dominant in Weeks' desert scenes of the period. The striking contrasts otherwise afforded by open sunlight give way in the present painting to a more subtle mood of translucent light, reflected and seemingly radiating from the pearlescent patchwork of whites, creams and pale yellows dappled across the painting - a level of subtlety which would have been obliterated by the blinding open sunshine of the North African desert. This is assuredly one of Weeks' finest paintings from his Moroccan period, probably executed entirely in studio, circa 1880.

A related study for the figure with the yellow and red headdress, seated at the center of the composition, was sold at Sotheby's Monaco, June 18-19, 1992, lot 417. As is typical of Weeks, every detail of the study was retained and seamlessly integrated into the composition of the present painting. The subject of chess players was often visited by Weeks, ultimately reappearing in a major composition left uncompleted at his death in 1903, and exhibited posthumously at the Salon of 1904, as Le jeu d'échecs.

To be in Dr. Ellen K. Morris' forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Weeks.

We are grateful to Dr. Ellen K. Morris for preparing this catalogue entry.