View Of A Fortified City In Morocco (tetouan?), Pencil On Buff Paper By Georges Clairin

French painter and illustrator. Representative of the Orientalist movement. Georges Clairin entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1861, where he trained in the studios of Isidore Pils and François-Édouard Picot. He made his debut at the 1866 Salon. He traveled to Spain with the painter Henri Regnault and the sculptor Marcello, and to Italy with the painters François Flameng and Jean-Léon Gérôme. He met the Catalan painter Marià Fortuny during a stay in Morocco, where they visited Tetouan together. In 1895, he traveled to Egypt with the composer Camille Saint-Saëns. He is best known for his portraits of Sarah Bernhardt, with whom he had a long friendship and whom he portrayed in many of the roles in which she distinguished herself, such as the queen in Ruy Blas (1879), Mélisande in La Princesse lointaine (1895 and 1899), Cleopatra (1900), Theodora (1902) and Saint Teresa of Avila; he also depicted her in more intimate poses (Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, 1876, Paris, Petit Palais, given to the museum upon the actress's death by her son in 1923). The work is mounted on a cardboard drum and is signed lower right: G Clairin