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Lot Essay
Les falaises - la baie à Marsa Matrouh (esquisse) exemplifies one of Mahmoud Saïd's most revisited landscapes as it is quintessentially Egyptian through its colours, compositional elements, setting and historical references. The work comes from the Private Collection of Queen Farida of Egypt, Queen Farida (Safinaz Zulficar) was Saïd's niece, to whom the artist had gifted the present work in the late 1940s. After Queen Farida left Egypt in 1952, she moved to Montereux in Switzerland, and had the present work along with two other paintings by Mahmoud Saïd hanging in her bedroom. Combining some of his favourite motifs with a typical seaside landscape of the Northern Egyptian coast, Saïd presents one of the many facets of his homeland's national character in this painting. The title refers to the Mediterranean seaport Marsa Matrouh, capital of the Matrouh Governorate in Egypt, located west of Saïd's native town, Alexandria. It was and still is a very popular beach resort destination for the Cairenes and Alexandrians who fled the suffocating summer heat to this serene place characterised by its soft white sand and crystal clear calm waters.
The present work is the oil sketch for the larger painting Les falaises - la baie à Marsa Matrouh, that is currently in the collection of Museum of Modern Art, Cairo.
Known as Amunia during the Ancient Egyptian times and the reign of Alexander The Great, or Paraitonion during the Ptolemic era and Paraetonium during the Roman occupation, this succession of names for the city Marsa Matrouh reflects its excellent strategic position in the Mediterranean and its turbulent history, having fallen several times in the hands of various conquerors. Nonetheless, whilst chains of hotels have now been built east of Marsa Matrouh towards El Alamein, the area west of the city towards the Libyan border is one of the last undiscovered places in Egypt, which has not been spoilt by civilisation and is still today a testament of the traditional Bedouin way of life. Mahmoud Saïd's painting pays tribute to this area with its breathtaking seascape, as he glorifies its true Egyptian character, which survived through several occupations over the past centuries, sometimes under its purest form.
As in many other works, Mahmoud Saïd here captures the essence of the national Egyptian identity through his extraordinarily glowing palette. He uses a bright yellow pigment full of sunlight for the ground, followed by a luminous white for the hills in the background, both entrapped by the radiant electric blue tone of the sky and sea, reflecting the distinctive colours of Marsa Matrouh. Although these vibrant colours are some of Mahmoud Saïd's trademarks, they also recall some of the works realised by the Fauves, such as the scenes of the seaport Collioure in the South- West of France by Andre Derain painted around 1905, yet Saïd adds translucence to his pigments, creating a gem-like effect.
The present work is the oil sketch for the larger painting Les falaises - la baie à Marsa Matrouh, that is currently in the collection of Museum of Modern Art, Cairo.
Known as Amunia during the Ancient Egyptian times and the reign of Alexander The Great, or Paraitonion during the Ptolemic era and Paraetonium during the Roman occupation, this succession of names for the city Marsa Matrouh reflects its excellent strategic position in the Mediterranean and its turbulent history, having fallen several times in the hands of various conquerors. Nonetheless, whilst chains of hotels have now been built east of Marsa Matrouh towards El Alamein, the area west of the city towards the Libyan border is one of the last undiscovered places in Egypt, which has not been spoilt by civilisation and is still today a testament of the traditional Bedouin way of life. Mahmoud Saïd's painting pays tribute to this area with its breathtaking seascape, as he glorifies its true Egyptian character, which survived through several occupations over the past centuries, sometimes under its purest form.
As in many other works, Mahmoud Saïd here captures the essence of the national Egyptian identity through his extraordinarily glowing palette. He uses a bright yellow pigment full of sunlight for the ground, followed by a luminous white for the hills in the background, both entrapped by the radiant electric blue tone of the sky and sea, reflecting the distinctive colours of Marsa Matrouh. Although these vibrant colours are some of Mahmoud Saïd's trademarks, they also recall some of the works realised by the Fauves, such as the scenes of the seaport Collioure in the South- West of France by Andre Derain painted around 1905, yet Saïd adds translucence to his pigments, creating a gem-like effect.