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Lot Essay
Together with Edwin Lord Weeks, a fellow pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Bridgman was the most important Orientalist artist of his day. The present lot attests to an artistic development which was based on a naturalistic interpretation of his North African subject matter; this translated into works characterized by a loose, Impressionistic handling of paint, and by a strong sense of the picturesque and of sunlight, which were a world away from the meticulous and highly staged studio creations of his first teacher.
More than any other artist in the Orientalist genre, Bridgman's primary subject was the daily and often private lives of women, either portrayed in exotic, partly-imagined interior settings or, as in the present work, involved in everyday activities. Although on his first prolonged visit to Algeria in 1872-73, Bridgman travelled very much as a tourist painter, staying in the most comfortable suburbs of Algiers, by the late 1880s he was familiar enough with the culture to fully immerse himself in it. Returning in 1885-86, he put up his wife and family in a hotel, while making arrangements to spend his days recording the everyday activities of the city's people. Gerald Ackerman records:
'He [Bridgman] hired a guide, Belkassem, giving him the mission of finding him entrée into private houses. Belkassem arranged for him to work in the house of Baïa, a widow of thirty with a young daughter; they lived in the old city, the Kasbah. The widows supported herself by cooking, washing, and sewing for French wives. He worked on the terrace, "my favourite place, being unmolested in the shadow of the high house of a neighbour, completely surrounded and enveloped in whites - yellow, gray, blue, green and pink whites, delicious whites in shadow of those refined tones so difficult to do justice to on canvas, and with which one must wrestle".
From his shady spot on the terrace he watched and painted the life of the house: cleaning, weaving, cooking and the coffee parties with visiting neighbours.' G. Ackerman, American Orientalists, Paris, 1994, p. 30).
Probably executed in the 1890s, this painting clearly harks back to this experience. It is one of many paintings depicting women on the terraces of Algiers, with the sea clearly visible in the background. The woman, dressed in bright orange, and with coloured garments at her feet, glances almost nonchalantly above her arm towards the viewer, providing a picturesque and striking counterpoint to the symphony of subtly shaded whites which play across the majority of the composition.
More than any other artist in the Orientalist genre, Bridgman's primary subject was the daily and often private lives of women, either portrayed in exotic, partly-imagined interior settings or, as in the present work, involved in everyday activities. Although on his first prolonged visit to Algeria in 1872-73, Bridgman travelled very much as a tourist painter, staying in the most comfortable suburbs of Algiers, by the late 1880s he was familiar enough with the culture to fully immerse himself in it. Returning in 1885-86, he put up his wife and family in a hotel, while making arrangements to spend his days recording the everyday activities of the city's people. Gerald Ackerman records:
'He [Bridgman] hired a guide, Belkassem, giving him the mission of finding him entrée into private houses. Belkassem arranged for him to work in the house of Baïa, a widow of thirty with a young daughter; they lived in the old city, the Kasbah. The widows supported herself by cooking, washing, and sewing for French wives. He worked on the terrace, "my favourite place, being unmolested in the shadow of the high house of a neighbour, completely surrounded and enveloped in whites - yellow, gray, blue, green and pink whites, delicious whites in shadow of those refined tones so difficult to do justice to on canvas, and with which one must wrestle".
From his shady spot on the terrace he watched and painted the life of the house: cleaning, weaving, cooking and the coffee parties with visiting neighbours.' G. Ackerman, American Orientalists, Paris, 1994, p. 30).
Probably executed in the 1890s, this painting clearly harks back to this experience. It is one of many paintings depicting women on the terraces of Algiers, with the sea clearly visible in the background. The woman, dressed in bright orange, and with coloured garments at her feet, glances almost nonchalantly above her arm towards the viewer, providing a picturesque and striking counterpoint to the symphony of subtly shaded whites which play across the majority of the composition.