Page 44 - Orient Collection

16. The Afternoon REST

Artist: Emile CLAUS, Belgian, (1849 - 1924)
Execution date (approximate): 1900
Téchnique: Oil on Canvas, (signed higher left)
Measures: 65.5 x 100.5 cm.
Description: A Masterpiece of E. CLAUS, showing all the strengh of the Painter of Light.
Two Musicians (Gnaoui) with the back to a luminous white wall, resting from the strong
heat and brightness of the Sun, and one drinking his coffee, in Tlemçen -Algeria.
-Since 1900 E.Claus was considered as the Pioneer of the “Belgian Inlightment”. Claus
founded the Sociaty of “Life and Light” and became known as the Painter of the Sun.

Biography
Emile Claus was born on 27 September 1849, in Sint-Eloois-Vijve, a village in West-Flanders
(Belgium), at the banks of the river Lys. He graduated from the Academy with a gold
medal. Although Claus’ father allowed him to take drawing classes, he did not fancy an
artist’s career for his son. Instead, he sent Emile to apprentice as a baker in Lille (France).
Emile learned French there but the job of a baker clearly did not appeal to him.
He was a painter of portraits, landscapes, pastel, impressionists but very rarely Orientalist.
He traveled to Spain and Morocco, and spent some time in Algeria, where the two Collection
paintings were inspired. He went on to Paris London and Antwerp. Claus became a member
of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Belgium.
The Collection’s paintings are an extraordinary examples of his great talent and a unique
and rare testimony of his Orientalist period. His paintings are found in Museums of Brussels,
Antwerp, Dresden (Germany), Paris (Musée du Luxembourg), Rome, and Venice.

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