Gustave BOURGAIN - View of a Street in Cairo in the 1880s

Gustave BOURGAIN
Paris, 1856 - Paris, 1921

Oil on paper
33 x 24 cm (44 x 35cm with the frame)
Signed lower right "G. Bourgain"

Pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gustave Bourgain exhibited at the Salon from 1880. He was attached to the newspaper L'illustration and thus left with the expedition to Alexandria in 1882 and for the coronation of Tsar Alexander III in Russia in 1883. Great amateur navigation and fishing, he became official painter of the navy in 1883 and painted many scenes of life on the ships of the French State. He also painted views of his travels in the Orient.
Our painting is a view of Cairo which may date from his stay in Egypt in the 1880s. It is a scene of life in Cairo with locals walking down the street and with the view of a beautiful palace.
This study was used to paint the large painting exhibited at the Salon des artistes Français in Paris by Bourgain in 1912 "Bonaparte's entry into Cairo after Jaffa" and sold at Sotheby's New York on February 22, 1989 (sold for $90,000 at hammer). We clearly recognize the architecture of the beautiful palace on the right and the shot. In the composition of 1912, Bourgain added characters who deviate to let Bonaparte on horseback and his retinue pass and of course bring many details required by a large composition (1.50m by 1.20m). But our little canvas has the freshness of a sketch probably made on site, as shown by the traces of thumbtacks in the canvas that can be seen on the sides and the parts that are more sketchy than others.

Ref: XTT5G6UDLG