El Kettar Arab Cemetery, Algiers – Oil On Cardboard – Signed And Dated 1923

Juliette Vaugley (interpretation based on the signature—artist currently unidentified)
A corner of the Arab cemetery in El Kettar, Algiers — 1923
Oil on cardboard
Signed lower right “Juliette Vaugley”
37.5 x 26 cm — 43 x 31 cm with frame
Very good condition
Original frame: stained and waxed wooden moldings

The artist positioned herself high above, on the slope of the cemetery, and placed a koubba in the foreground—this small tomb with a white dome and walls of ochre brick and lime, which houses the burial site of a revered figure. All around, rounded headstones emerge from the vegetation, slightly askew, scattered among the undergrowth. The gaze then travels up the hill: dark cypress trees, masses of green and bluish trees, a few tiled roofs to the left, the white houses of the town higher up, then the curve of the coast and the sea closing off the horizon.

This is a painting created from life. The brushwork is thick and heavy, applied in small, comma-like strokes among the foliage; the dome, on the other hand, is rendered in broad, smooth strokes that catch the light. The entire composition of the painting rests on this contrast between the white of the koubba and the deep greens that surround it. The reds and oranges of the flowers, scattered among the vegetation, enliven the whole scene. The sky, gray-blue and slightly milky, is typical of a late Mediterranean morning.

The El Kettar cemetery, established in the 1830s on the hills above Algiers between Bab Djedid and Bab El Oued, owes its name (“the distiller”) to the orange and jasmine groves that were once distilled there. Built on a steep slope that plunges down to the sea, it offers precisely the bird’s-eye view that the artist chose. It is one of Algiers’ major Muslim cemeteries, rarely depicted in paintings—and that is what makes this small oil painting so interesting, serving both as a landscape study and a documentary record of a place.

Condition—Very good condition. The board is sound, the painting is well-preserved, with no missing sections or restorations. The title and date are written in ink on the back. Original frame made of stained and waxed wooden molding, in good condition.

The Artist—Our research has not yielded any biographical information on Juliette Vaugley. The signature, subject, and date point to an artist working in Algeria in the early 1920s, a period when many painters were staying in Algiers and exhibiting at the Salon of the Society of Algerian and Orientalist Artists. In any case, the work shows a confident and skilled hand.

Work on view at the gallery (07240)
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