Stefan Bakalowicz - Ahmed Kelil (1904)

Oil on canvas, 23 x 18 cm
Titled, dated and signed top right: "Ahmed Kelil, Luqsor 28 mars 1904 St. Bakalowicz".

Born in Warsaw in 1857, Stefan Bakałowicz immersed himself in painting from an early age thanks to his father Wladislaw, a genre painter.
The exotic was one of the painter's main sources of inspiration, as demonstrated by his works of Indian settings Symphony of the Morning. His first trip was to Algeria in 1883, followed by explorations in Egypt and Tripoli in 1903, which resulted in a series of Orientalist works that were presented at the 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition and met with great success.
Also part of this corpus are five portraits of young Egyptian men, as the inscription at the top right of the painting suggests (Luqsor, or Luxor, a city on the east bank of the Nile). Attention to detail and also ethnographic interest drive the artist's awareness to such an extent that it inspires the perception of the Egyptian universe.