Stefan Bakalowicz - African Portrait

Oil on canvas, 38 x 26 cm
Signed and dated lower right: 'S. Bakalowicz - Tripoli A. D. MCMXXI'.

Born in Warsaw in 1857, Stefan Bakałowicz immersed himself in painting from an early age thanks to his father Wladislaw, a genre painter.
Exoticism was one of the painter's main sources of inspiration, as evidenced by his works of Indian landscapes Symphony of the Morning. His first trip was to Algeria in 1883, followed by explorations in Egypt and Tripoli in 1903, culminating in a series of Orientalist works that were presented at the Exposition Coloniale in Paris in 1931 and met with great success.
This body of work also includes five portraits of young Egyptian men, as indicated by the inscription at the top right of the painting (Luqsor, or Luxor, a city on the eastern bank of the Nile). The artist's attention to detail and his ethnographic interest were such that they inspired his perception of the Egyptian world.