Portrait Of An Oriental In Traditional Costume, Fortini 1924

Orientalist portrait signed Fortini and dated 1924, representing a standing man dressed in a beautiful traditional North African costume.
The painting is in the tradition of the traveling painters of the early 20th century, sensitive to light, to fabrics and who since Delacroix see in the nearby Orient a world of pleasures and vices.
Here no vice but a man in traditional costume represented full length, holding in his right hand a curved object,

probably a sword he is drawing from its scabbard.

He is dressed in a long ivory burnous, ample and supple, thrown over a carmine red tunic with a slit neckline, and dark trousers. tightened below the knee. His head is covered with a white turban with red braid, it is painted on a neutral gray-blue background which highlights his silhouette, off-center which allows the painter to represent his shadow and his mystery.
The style evokes the orientalist painters active between the two wars, notably in Algeria or Morocco.
The panel is signed lower left Fortini and dated 1924