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Lot Essay
A pupil of the celebrated Orientalist painter Léopold Carl Müller (see lot 44), Charles Wilda, like Ludwig Deutsch, trained at the Viennese Akademie der Bilden Künste. Wilda received the Kaiserpreis in 1895 and exhibited his Orientalist paintings in Vienna, Munich, as well as participating in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 where he was awarded a bronze medal.
In common with Ludwig Deutsch, and following an established tradition with Orientalist painters, Wilda travelled to Egypt in the early 1880s, finally settling in Cairo where he set up a studio. The city had changed much since Lewis, Gleyre, Marilhat, Müller and Roberts had been there in the 1830s. In the 1840s when the sociologist of modern Egypt, Edward William Lane, arrived he found it still thoroughly Eastern, with '...turbanned Turks in rich pelisses, Arabs in the graceful bournus, Copts in fringed garments of camel's hair and half-naked Nubians, their black limbs relieved by some scanty drapery of white cotton' (quoted in: London, Fine Art Society, Eastern Encounters: Orientalist Painters of the Nineteenth Century, 1978, p. 39).
Since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Cairo had become increasingly westernised, swamps were drained, hotels built, and an Opera opened (the first opera performed was Verdi's Aida). Thomas Cook began to organise his trips up the Nile as Egypt quickly became a fashionable resort. In the present work Wilda is in a sense depicting the vestiges of a once oriental city quickly passing into history and was still able to capture the narrow, bustling and picturesque quality of the streets of Cairo. He focused his attention on the great diversity of the town's street and courtyard scenes in tremendous detail. He matched his technical virtuosity with his imaginative evocation of the romanticism of the Arab world. Six months after his death in November 1907, the Künstlerhaus in Vienna held a retrospective exhibition of his work as a testament to his enduring popularity.
In common with Ludwig Deutsch, and following an established tradition with Orientalist painters, Wilda travelled to Egypt in the early 1880s, finally settling in Cairo where he set up a studio. The city had changed much since Lewis, Gleyre, Marilhat, Müller and Roberts had been there in the 1830s. In the 1840s when the sociologist of modern Egypt, Edward William Lane, arrived he found it still thoroughly Eastern, with '...turbanned Turks in rich pelisses, Arabs in the graceful bournus, Copts in fringed garments of camel's hair and half-naked Nubians, their black limbs relieved by some scanty drapery of white cotton' (quoted in: London, Fine Art Society, Eastern Encounters: Orientalist Painters of the Nineteenth Century, 1978, p. 39).
Since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Cairo had become increasingly westernised, swamps were drained, hotels built, and an Opera opened (the first opera performed was Verdi's Aida). Thomas Cook began to organise his trips up the Nile as Egypt quickly became a fashionable resort. In the present work Wilda is in a sense depicting the vestiges of a once oriental city quickly passing into history and was still able to capture the narrow, bustling and picturesque quality of the streets of Cairo. He focused his attention on the great diversity of the town's street and courtyard scenes in tremendous detail. He matched his technical virtuosity with his imaginative evocation of the romanticism of the Arab world. Six months after his death in November 1907, the Künstlerhaus in Vienna held a retrospective exhibition of his work as a testament to his enduring popularity.