Henri Pontoy, Market Scene, North Africa.

This richly colored and luminous Orientalist painting depicts two women in the center of a square. One stands before her stall, while the other, younger, breastfeeds her child. Behind them, at the foot of what appear to be the walls of a citadel, are market stalls, and to the right, a small shopping street bustles with numerous figures. A young shoeshine boy, his equipment slung over his shoulder, dressed in European style, walks away with his back to them. Henri Pontoy was a French painter, born in Reims in 1888 and died in 1968. He was an Orientalist painter who produced some landscapes reminiscent of the Barbizon school, as well as some cityscapes. He studied under Luc Olivier Merson at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Salon d'Automne, and the Salon des Artistes Orientalistes Algériens. In 1926, he received a travel grant from the Colonial Society of French Artists, which allowed him to travel to Tunisia, where he became a member of the Tunisian Salon. He then traveled to Morocco and French West Africa. During this period, he befriended the painter Jacques Majorelle. He taught arts and literature in Fez. In 1933, he was awarded the Grand Prize of the City of Algiers, and in 1951, he received the Cameroon Prize. 20th century. Oil on panel, 30.5 x 39.5 cm.