Colourful panel painting by the leading orientalist painter Henri-Émilien Rousseau of a mounted Bedouin falconer, one of Rousseau's favourite subjects. While the sport of falconry was an important status symbol in the Middle East and Europe generally, for the Bedouins it was a means of survival.
Rousseau (1875-1933) was a Cairo-born French painter who divided his childhood between North Africa and France, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under the great Orientalist painter, Jean-Léon Gérôme. He broke from the style of his master, however, and started to paint in a more impressionistic style. Between 1920 and 1930 he travelled extensively through the Rif and Atlas mountains of Morocco, where he befriended the chiefs of several nomad tribes. It was probably here that Rousseau fell under the spell of the Bedouin horsemen, which came to characterize his compositions. In 1927 more than 80 of his works from this period were displayed at the gallery of the influential Parisian art dealer Georges Petit. This was followed by an exhibition at the Exposition Universelle of 1931.
The panel is cracked in the length, leading to a 4 cm crack in the paint to the right of the rider's head, a 1 cm crack below the horse's left hind hoof, and a 7 cm crack from the top left to the horse's head, but these cracks are only noticeable on close inspection and no paint has been lost. Some minor craquelure in the dark red patch connecting the rider and the saddle. Otherwise a well-executed and clean painting. For the artist: Thieme & Becker XXIX, p. 113.