Manoucher Yektai (Iranian, b. 1922)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more PROPERTY FROM THE ARTIST'S ESTATE‘When we look at a painting by Mr. Sabbagh, we do not think about the technique. We are seduced by its charm that brings together the undefinable influence of Ancient Egyptian heritage with that of an eminently French artistic culture’. (René Jean, Galerie Druet, Paris, January 1922; translated from French)
Georges Hanna Sabbagh (Egyptian, 1877-1951)

Nu allongé

Details
Georges Hanna Sabbagh (Egyptian, 1877-1951)
Nu allongé
signed and dated ‘G.H.SABBAGH - 1921’ (lower right)
oil on canvas
36 5/8 x 25 5/8 in. (93 x 65cm.)
Painted in 1921
Provenance
The artist’s estate, thence by descent to the present owner.
Special notice
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Described as a ‘cordial and deeply painter’ by Jean Cassou (1897-1986) the first director of the Musée d’Art Moderne of Paris, Georges Hanna Sabbagh was widely recognised as a seminal artist on both the Eastern and Western artistic scenes at the beginning of the 20th century. Born in Alexandria in a Catholic family of Lebanese origin, Sabbagh studied law in Paris in 1906 but simultaneously discovered a true passion for art. Four years later, he took courses at the Académie Ranson, the cradle of the Nabis movement, where he was taught by French painter Maurice Denis (1870-1943), Paul Sérusier (1864-1927) and Félix Vallotton (1865-1925). Sabbagh soon became an active member of the Parisian intellectual and artistic scene, befriending Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) who had also moved to Paris in 1906. From 1920 to 1921, Sabbagh’s works Les Sabbagh à la Clarté (1920), Les Sabbagh à Paris (1921) and Le Nu à la Fourrure (1921) monopolized the Parisian public’s attention at the renowned Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants. From then on, he exhibited at Bernheim, Druet and Weill galleries in Paris as well as in other European countries such as Belgium and Switzerland from 1920 to 1936. His oeuvre is well represented in seminal institutions across the globe, from Rio de Janeiro to Cairo, Lebanon and Doha, as well as featuring prominently in leading national and departmental museums across France.

Although affiliated to Cubism, Fauvism and the Nabis, and nicknamed ‘the branch of the École de Paris’ Georges Sabbagh always distanced himself from any label, creating his own personal style. His return to Egypt in 1920, when his mother passed away, marked a turning point in his aesthetic approach, embodied by this exceptional and unpublished nude painting realised in 1921. In this work, he captured an impressive female nude lying on a bed and contemplating the view through the window. Her left arm resting on a soft blue cushion supports the back of her neck, a position which ingeniously prevents the identification of the character.

Whilst in Egypt, the artist was captivated by the great Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites of the country he had left for fourteen years. The vastness of the desert and especially the imposing Pharaonic constructions such as the pyramids and the sanctuaries left a strong impact on the works he produced thereafter. Stretched from top to bottom, the monumental figure fills up most of the space of this 1921 composition as if she was falling backwards out of the canvas. Sabbagh emphasised his model’s imposing body giving it a sculptural and almost architectural aspect through the repetitive small brushstrokes, emulating Paul Cézanne’s modelling technique and Modigliani’s proto-Cubist palette.

Additionally, he played on the geometric shapes formed by the different parts of the human body to achieve a specific pose for his model. The pyramidal form predominates the composition materialised by the body’s articulations as seen with the left elbow, the two bent knees or even the triangular empty space naturally outlined by the woman’s thighs and calf. The intensity of his homeland’s light was undeniably another source of inspiration as visible here in the way that the luminosity structures the scene and underlines the dramatic architecture of the body’s position contrasting with the shaded areas particularly on the right-side of the woman’s stomach. The transition in Sabbagh’s oeuvre is even more so visible in the present lot when compared to another seminal work by Sabbagh entitled L’Atelier du Peintre à la Clarté, painted in 1918-1920, in which a striking model poses in a similar way. However, the aesthetic contrast between the latter and the present 1921 nude proves how Sabbagh broke free from the shackles of Cubism’s rigid geometric principles giving way to a more personal style in which the looser, thicker brushstrokes could grasp better the refection of light to emphasise the subject’s three dimensionality and monumentality.

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