Oil On Canvas-georges Clairin-sentinel In The Ruins Of Karnak-egypt-19c

Georges CLAIRIN (Paris, 1843 - Le Pouldu, 1919) Sentinel in the ruins of Karnak - Souvenir of the Egyptian campaign Oil on canvas 71 x 54.5 cm Signed lower left On the back, label from the Bernheim Jeune gallery and title : La Sentinelle Perfect state 1895-1900 Celebrated artist of the Third Republic, virtuoso technician capable of the most ambitious compositions, Georges Clairin nevertheless escapes the flatness of official art through his eccentricity and his strong temperament. A student of Pils and Picot at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, he made his debut at the Salon of 1866 and won a silver medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1889. A great decorator, he worked for the Opéra-Garnier, the opera of Monte-Carlo, the Paris Stock Exchange, the theaters of Tours, Epernay and Cherbourg, and won orders from individuals as far away as Chile. From his busy life and his quite varied work, posterity will retain two major traits. First of all, Clairin was Sarah Bernhardt's official painter. He was first the lover of the great actress, then the close friend. He created with her and with another inseparable, the painter Louise Abbema, a mutual admiration club called the Finger in the Eye Society - which clearly reveals the whimsical personalities of this exceptional trio. Although he painted Sarah in many of her roles, one painting remains forever, which represents the actress in majesty, although nonchalant, among the silks, velvets, furs and green plants of her interior: it is of course the portrait kept at the Petit-Palais, presented at the Salon of 1876. Georges Clairin subsequently remained as a great painter-traveler, and one of the main French orientalists of the end of the 19th century. He led his first expeditions with his fellow student at the School, Henri Régnault (1843-1871). The two friends left together for Brittany, then for Spain, then in the midst of a revolution. In Madrid, Clairin posed - astride a barrel! - for the famous portrait on horseback of General Prim. Amazed by Andalusia, the young painters went as far as Morocco where Clairin discovered “the color of the Orient, the smell of the Orient, its mystery, its remoteness, its prestige. Another life, another dream of life! » The war recalled them to France, where Régnault died during the Battle of Buzenval. Georges Clairin returned to Morocco, where he received a visit from Mariano Fortuny with whom he made an excursion to Tetouan. Then he accompanied the diplomat-archaeologist Charles-Joseph Tissot to Fez. After other trips to Italy, Spain, Algeria, his last expedition, in 1895, was to Egypt. He first visited Upper Egypt with the archaeologist Jacques de Morgan (1857-1924), director of the Department of Antiquities in Egypt, and became passionate about the ruins of Karnak. He then rented a felucca with his old friend Camille Saint-Saëns, the musician, who dressed for the occasion in Japanese clothing and slippers! He finally attempted to explore Sinai with de Morgan, but a serious fever forced him to interrupt his trip. Egypt will offer him, in the following years, the subjects of numerous paintings presented in various Salons. In Upper Egypt, Georges Clairin had searched in vain for traces of Bonaparte's expedition. He endeavored to reconstruct it through a series of paintings, such as French soldiers in the middle of the ruins of the temple of Karnak (Salon of 1897; ill. 1). Our painting surprises with the surreal (and humorous) rapprochement of the colossal leg of a statue of Karnak and a sentry half-dressed in oriental style who dozes while leaning against his rifle (this soldier is- is there a nod to the dozing sentinel that Léon Cogniet had placed under Bonaparte's tent, in his Egyptian ceiling of the Louvre?) This makeshift French camp, established in grandiose ruins, has an air of abandonment and bohemianism which augurs the imminent end of a desperate adventure. The brief intrusion of the troopers with Gallic mustaches seems very paltry here compared to the thousand-year-old monuments of Pharaonic Egypt. SOLD WITH ITS CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY