Bernard Bruyere - Study For Christ Before Pilate

Bernard BRUYERE
Besançon, 1879 - Saint Germain-en-Laye, 1971
Study for Christ before Pilate (1904)
Front: a scribe or doctor of the law
Back: Pilate washing his hands
Watercolor
31 x 21 cm (38 x 30 cm with plexiglass)
Signed, titled and dated 1904
Bears number 4
Very good condition

Here is an early work by Bernard Bruyère, who was a renowned Egyptologist after starting out as a draughtsman and painter.
It is a study for a Christ before Pilate (not found) dated 1904.
The short biography written for the town of Chatou by M. Thomas Lebée (Lecturer at the École du Louvre and the Centre d'Etude d'Histoire de l'Art - Scientific Documentalist at the Musée du Louvre) explains the context of this work's creation and its attraction to the Near East.
"The Bruyère family settled in Chatou even before their military service (1902-1903). Bernard Bruyère went on to teach history at a free school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and drawing and painting in Chatou, where he was known to travel to Italy, Greece and even Egypt in 1910... perhaps a new vocation for him? Indeed, it was in the years that followed that he seems to have actively embarked on the path of Egyptology: he attended Bénédite's classes at the École du Louvre, as well as lectures on Egyptian philology and antiquities at the École pratique des hautes études from 1912 to 1914, where he stood out for his diligence. There he met another student, Fernand Bisson de la Roque, who was six years younger than him but more advanced in his studies, and who was to become one of his main colleagues in Egypt. (...) "Bernard Bruyère received this fine tribute from another great name in Egyptology, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt: "I learned a lot by watching Bernard Bruyère's activities, an exemplary archaeologist. After dinner, he was an inexhaustible storyteller. We can't emphasize enough Bernard Bruyère's endearing character, such a gentleman, but so discreet that his memory has almost disappeared from the circle of Egyptologists". Fortunately, his memory lives on in Chatou, where the Centre d'Etude en Histoire de l'Art bears his name and nurtures the town's affinity with art history, archaeology and Egyptology."