#fellah

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann (Nov. 27, 1819 - 1881) was a Polish-born Danish painter. She studied painting in Düsseldorf and there she met the sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau, got married to him and moved to Denmark when he was appointed Professor at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen.

Her work was met with some suspicion in Denmark with the exception of her rather blatantly nationalist canvases of “Mother Denmark” or wounded soldiers lovingly tended to by young, blonde women.

Recently her travel sketches and paintings from the Mediterranean countries and the Middle East have garnered more attention.Here is a fine example:

12 Works, November 21st. is Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann’s day, her art, illustrated with footnotes #238

Elisabeth Baumann (1819–1881)An Egyptian Pot Seller at Gizeh, c. between 1876 and 1878Oil on canvasHeight: 92 cm (36.2 in); Width: 114 cm (44.8 in)Statens Museum for Kunst The picture is a concentrate of observations on travels 1869–70 and 1874–75 to Turkey, Greece and Egypt and must be described as one of Jerichau Baumann’s masterpieces. It is carried by a sensuality and coloristic boldness…

Writing PhD dissertation is rather stressful so I made myself a calm drawing session yesterday and upgraded this postcard with some motives from Iranian tiles. The original postcard is titled “fellahine” and shows a rather romanticized and orientalised idea of a fellah woman from Egypt wearing her jewelry. The name “fellah” refers to local villagers and farmers living in the Nile valley as contrasted to nomadic Bedouins living in the desert.