Alexandre Bida's technique, scratching back the black layer of graphite and creating a multitude of fine hatchings to reveal the white ground beneath, is ably demonstrated in the present lot. Creating a work in chiaroscuro, the work stands in contrast to many of the artist's contemporaries, who opted for rich colours to represent an exotic Orient, full of sensuality and eroticism.

The present lot makes an interesting comparison with Café in Constantinople (1847, Cleveland Museum of Art), showing the same objects - a round table, coffee pots, the chibouk pipe- which Bida would have documented during his travels around Greece, Turkey and Syria. It was also the basis of an illustration in the Parisian journal L'Illustration, September, 1849, as well as a popular travel guidebook by Adolphe Laurent Joanne entitled Voyage en Orient, 1850. In both editions, the illustrations were made by a contemporary engraver and the barber is said to be Armenian instead of Persian.

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- 19th Century & Orientalist Paintings