(Last Updated On July 2, 2022)
While Henri Matisse’s sculpture ‘Les deux négresses’ (‘Two Negresses’) at first glance doesn’t look like it would belong on my blog, once you’ve seen the photo on which it is based you’ll understand why it is appropriate. First, the sculpture itself:
Henri Matisse – Les deux négresses (1908)
Now here is the photo from which Matisse modeled his sculpture:
Photographer Unknown – Jeunes filles targui (Young Tuareg Girls)
Clearly these are adolescent girls, albeit shapely ones.
Henri Matisse: Life and Painting (Official Site)
The photograph looks like it could be one from the opus of Rudolf Franz Lehnert and Ernst Heinrich Landrock, who were taking Orientalist images in Northern Africa in the early 20th century. I couldn’t find this particular photo in the vast deposits of their work on the internet, so it’s just a supposition…
Perhaps, but Lehnert & Landrock were not the only ones engaging in this Orientalist style. -Ron