Here are some highlights from the Najd Collection, from which 40 works will be auctioned at Sotheby’s on October 22.
Osman Hamdy Bey
Sotheby’s bills the Najd Collection as “one of the greatest collections of Orientalist paintings ever assembled.” Before the auction, all 155 works will be travelling to New York, LA, Dubai and Paris for public viewing, including Bey’s “Koranic Instruction,” seen here.
Eugène Fromentin
Fromentin’s dramatic 1864 oil painting,“Windstorm on the Esparto Plains of the Sahara” — in which a storm menaces a group of horsemen with no shelter in sight — is expected to sell for between $490,000-$730,000. Fromentin was a French painter and writer best-known for his works featuring the land and people of Algeria.
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant
“The King of Morocco Leaving to Receive a European Ambassador” is typical of the French painter and etcher’s work. Benjamin-Constant was well-known in his day (he received a state funeral in France in 1902), but has largely been forgotten since, perhaps because his work was so traditional.
