Edward Herzig. (1860 - 1926) Watercolor.

Watercolor depicting four Arab street vendors. Circa 1900. Signed lower right. French painter and caricaturist, of Swiss origin, he was born on December 23, 1860 in Neuchâtel and died in Algiers on October 3, 1926. He trained as a teacher and attended the teacher training college in Neuchâtel, but his taste for independence and adventure led him to Marseille where he embarked for Algeria in 1883, at the age of 23. He settled in Kabylie where he became clerk of the justice of the peace in Tizi Ouzou. Then, settled in Algiers, he attended the School of Fine Arts. He participated in the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition with three slideshows (in vogue at the time) on Algiers, Kabylia and the South Sahara. His entire life he defended craftsmanship and the preservation of traditional Algerian art. He moved to Paris in 1914 to follow the education of his daughters, Fernande Herzig and Yvonne Kleiss-Herzig, both renowned painters, before returning to Algeria in 1918. His work was unanimously recognized and made popular on the occasion of the Decorative Arts Exhibition in Paris in 1925 (Algeria pavilion).