William Lamb Picknell

Private collection, USA (sale, Sotheby's New York, 14 March 1996, lot 165)

With Mark Murray Fine Paintings, New York (sale, Sotheby's London, 17 October 1997, lot 351)

Purchased at the above sale by a private collector (sale, Christie's New York, 26 January 2011, lot 252)

Few Orientalist works by this Vermont-born painter are known. Having studied for two years in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme in the 1870sm, he would have been familiar with and no doubt inspired by the latter’s Orientalist compositions. It is even possible that the present work is a self-portrait of the artist, aged twenty-eight, exploring the genre for the first time. Picknell was an avid traveller, and while his itineraries are unknown it is very likely he ventured to North Africa, most likely Morocco.