Edouard VERSCHAFFELT (1874-1955)

Le banquet des dieux antiques Oil on canvas, signed and situated lower right 37 x 45 1/4 in. PROVENANCE Collection privée, Paris Belgian artist Edouard Verschaffelt spent most of his life in Algeria, in Bou Saada, where he died in 1955. He studied at the Ghent and Antwerp Fine Arts schools, and was highly attached to his Flemish heritage and the Impressionistic develop­ments of the time. However, he is chiefly known today for his Orientalist corpus. Five years after his first visit in 1919, he moved permanently to the oasis of Bou Saada, and married a young woman from the Ouled Sidi Brahim tribe. This region of the Sahara provided him with material for his work, which directly reflected the reality of everyday life in Algeria as he saw it. The painting presented today illustrates the artist's first «white» aesthetic period, characterised by brightness and light. The artist depicts a highly singular ver­sion of Olympus. The banquet is slowing down after reaching its height, and we are looking at the end of the festivities. While some of the gods are still firmly grasping their glasses of nectar, others are already growing drowsy. It is interesting to see that despite the subject represented, the painting is extremely gentle and harmo­nious, with supple gestures and light col­ours. Far removed from humanity and bad weather like snow, rain and wind, the gods can contemplate the world from their life of unalloyed bliss.