Christie's to auction collection of Orientalist Art

KOLKATA: Christie's will offer an outstanding collection of Orientalist Art at auction, which will take place at Christie's Paris on 20 June 2013. A selection of masterpieces will be highlighted by the paintings of Etienne Dinet, Felix Philippoteaux and Frederick Arthur Bridgman. The entire sale is expected to realise between €6 million and €9 million.

Lionel Gosset, collections department director says in an email statement: ""This collection pays a thrilling tribute to Etienne Dinet, an Orientalist painter whose involvement in celebrating Algerian culture results in powerfully authentic works. His technical virtuosity is evident across his oeuvre, whether in illustrating dignity, sensuality, sorrow, religious ardour or a general love of life. The artist identifies himself to his models, to their life, to their faith, to their legends. To quote his friend Leonce Benedite: ""Dinet is essentially the painter and poet of Arab life.""

Throughout the 19th century, the Orient played an inspirational role for travellers and artists around the world. Artists were invited to follow military, scientific or diplomatic missions in Mediterranean countries, and to produce topographical and imaginary representations of the Orient, which celebrated the western vision of Oriental rituals and customs in colonised areas.

This began to change at the end of the 19th century, when Orientalist painters from Europe, America, Canada and Australia settled for long periods of time in Northern Africa, transforming the West's vision of the East, through their realistic depiction of everyday life. Dinet is considered a master among the many painters who documented the Orient, immortalising on canvas the cities, traditional ceremonies, and rural realities of the East.