Emile Edmond Peynot

EMILE EDMOND PEYNOT (France, 1850-1932).
"Tunisian merchant", c. 1883.
Patinated and partially gilded bronze; "rouge griotte" marble base.
Signed.
Measurements: 67 cm (height); 8 x 32.0 x 32.5 cm (base).

Sculpture in patinated bronze and partially gilded, on marble base, with an inscription in Arabic that reads "Albayaa Altunisi" (Tunisian merchant). The work was exhibited at the 1883 Salon, after which it became a great commercial success and a must for any Orientalist art collection of the time.

Emile Edmond Peynot (1850-1932) was a student of François Jouffroy and Pierre-Alfred Robinet. Among his most important successes is the first prize of the "Prix de Rome" in 1880, a famous scholarship for students of fine arts, whose beginnings date back to the government of Louis XIV, and the decoration of the Legion of Honor in 1903.

At the end of the 19th century, Orientalism was in vogue, directing the creative efforts of artists towards a distant world charged with romanticism, still under that mantle of mysticism that industrialization had snatched from old Europe. Although the belligerent and dramatic attitudes were well received by the French clientele, Peynot, on this occasion, preferred to opt for the tense calm of the arms merchant, meditative and solitary, but at the same time, ready for action.