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Lot Essay
Edwin Lord Weeks was one of the most famous American Orientalist painters in the Paris expatriate community of artists during the late 19th Century. Weeks moved from Massachusetts to Paris in 1874 to train under Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gerôme, two renowned academicians whose influence is evident in the artist’s work. Having first shown at the Paris Salon in 1878, Weeks ultimately attained the highest distinction in the world of academic painting in 1896 when he won the Salon's Chévalier de la Légion d'Honneur award. His work was exhibited and won awards across Europe and America from 1876 until his death in 1903.
During these years in Paris, Weeks travelled extensively, visiting South America, North Africa, the Levant and Persia, and intrepidly ventured across India on three lengthy expeditions. On these trips, the artist produced many in-situ sketches, recording important architectural sites and the local people and customs, from which he would compose some of his most famous works. Weeks also achieved distinction as a travel writer; American magazines carried his vivid narratives of travels to distant lands, illustrated with his own sketches, rendered in oil en grisaille. Many of these narratives were compiled and published in the book, From the Black Sea through Persia and India (New York, 1895), which also included Weeks’ sketches and paintings.
This travelogue includes Weeks’ extensive observations of the ‘civil station’ of Lahore, where he spent a considerable amount of time on his second visit to India in 1888. Several of his pictures of the period documented the city, and particularly the area around its well-known Wazir Khan Mosque, commissioned in the Seventeenth Century by Hakim Ilmuddin Ansari, an advisor or vazir in the court of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. A hub of activity, Weeks chronicled both the beautiful architecture of the mosque and the people that congregated around it in several in situ sketches, oils en grisaille, and monumentally-scaled paintings that he completed on his return to Paris in 1889. The latter included one with the same title as the present lot, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon that year, where Weeks was awarded a Gold Medal.
Describing the teeming square in front of the mosque in great detail, Weeks wrote, “There is, in truth, a good deal of life and movement to be seen from the crumbling steps of Vazir Kahn; there are two domed edifices [...] which now shelter various trades beneath the rude thatched awnings projecting from their eaves [...] and in the middle of the square there are open-air restaurants, where great kettles of tinned copper stand upon platforms elevated above the ground and surrounded by rough benches; sooty frying-pans sizzle on little clay furnaces, and the keepers of these restaurants sit enthroned among their cooking utensils [...] In the middle of the day, the benches are crowded with customers, who have the appearance of being peasants from the outlying country, or Pathan peddlers; and most of them being voluminously swathed in white, they look not a little like the patrons of similar places in Morocco” (E.L. Weeks, From the Black Sea Through Persia and India, New York, 1895, pp. 178-180).
The present lot, which Weeks gifted to his friend Clarence Watson, depicts one of the food and tea stalls he called ‘open-air restaurants’ just outside the mosque on what appears to be a cold winter morning. Here, the gate and walls of the mosque, despite their immense historical significance and architectural grandeur, curiously lack any real detail. The real focus is on the locals at the restaurant, and particularly their costumes. Two men, wearing large turbans and bundled up in shawls sit on one of two rickety wooden benches around a low table laden with pots and urns, eating from small bowls. While the owner attends to another customer, a shallow pan on the ‘clay furnace’ behind him steams away, emitting both heat and aromas to draw more hungry and cold customers to the stall.
Probably a preparatory study for part of one of the artist’s larger works, compositions like the present lot formed a vital part of Weeks’ creative process, with his large-format paintings often preceded by several smaller versions. Nevertheless, his keen sense of observation and expert use of light and shadow here faithfully captures late 19th Century life in Lahore, providing an intimate glimpse into Weeks’ travels and encounters.
During these years in Paris, Weeks travelled extensively, visiting South America, North Africa, the Levant and Persia, and intrepidly ventured across India on three lengthy expeditions. On these trips, the artist produced many in-situ sketches, recording important architectural sites and the local people and customs, from which he would compose some of his most famous works. Weeks also achieved distinction as a travel writer; American magazines carried his vivid narratives of travels to distant lands, illustrated with his own sketches, rendered in oil en grisaille. Many of these narratives were compiled and published in the book, From the Black Sea through Persia and India (New York, 1895), which also included Weeks’ sketches and paintings.
This travelogue includes Weeks’ extensive observations of the ‘civil station’ of Lahore, where he spent a considerable amount of time on his second visit to India in 1888. Several of his pictures of the period documented the city, and particularly the area around its well-known Wazir Khan Mosque, commissioned in the Seventeenth Century by Hakim Ilmuddin Ansari, an advisor or vazir in the court of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. A hub of activity, Weeks chronicled both the beautiful architecture of the mosque and the people that congregated around it in several in situ sketches, oils en grisaille, and monumentally-scaled paintings that he completed on his return to Paris in 1889. The latter included one with the same title as the present lot, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon that year, where Weeks was awarded a Gold Medal.
Describing the teeming square in front of the mosque in great detail, Weeks wrote, “There is, in truth, a good deal of life and movement to be seen from the crumbling steps of Vazir Kahn; there are two domed edifices [...] which now shelter various trades beneath the rude thatched awnings projecting from their eaves [...] and in the middle of the square there are open-air restaurants, where great kettles of tinned copper stand upon platforms elevated above the ground and surrounded by rough benches; sooty frying-pans sizzle on little clay furnaces, and the keepers of these restaurants sit enthroned among their cooking utensils [...] In the middle of the day, the benches are crowded with customers, who have the appearance of being peasants from the outlying country, or Pathan peddlers; and most of them being voluminously swathed in white, they look not a little like the patrons of similar places in Morocco” (E.L. Weeks, From the Black Sea Through Persia and India, New York, 1895, pp. 178-180).
The present lot, which Weeks gifted to his friend Clarence Watson, depicts one of the food and tea stalls he called ‘open-air restaurants’ just outside the mosque on what appears to be a cold winter morning. Here, the gate and walls of the mosque, despite their immense historical significance and architectural grandeur, curiously lack any real detail. The real focus is on the locals at the restaurant, and particularly their costumes. Two men, wearing large turbans and bundled up in shawls sit on one of two rickety wooden benches around a low table laden with pots and urns, eating from small bowls. While the owner attends to another customer, a shallow pan on the ‘clay furnace’ behind him steams away, emitting both heat and aromas to draw more hungry and cold customers to the stall.
Probably a preparatory study for part of one of the artist’s larger works, compositions like the present lot formed a vital part of Weeks’ creative process, with his large-format paintings often preceded by several smaller versions. Nevertheless, his keen sense of observation and expert use of light and shadow here faithfully captures late 19th Century life in Lahore, providing an intimate glimpse into Weeks’ travels and encounters.