Lot 121: BORIS PRUSS (GERMAN, BORN 1863) ‘Araber’ signed, dated and inscribed ‘B

BORIS PRUSS (GERMAN, BORN 1863) ‘Araber’ signed, dated and inscribed ‘Boris Pruss/Munchen -86’ (lower right); inscribed with title and artist’s address (on old label attached to the frame) oil on canvas 116 x 82cm (45 11/16 x 32 5/16in).

Exhibited Munich, Glass Palace, Jahresausstellung von Kunstwerken aller Nationen, 1889, no. 806. New York, Salmagundi Annual Auction Exhibition and Sale, 1901, no.82 (titled An Aribien on Guard). Pruss was born in Wilkomir, Lithuania. He studied in Vilno and later Munich under Franz von Lenbach and Wilhelm Diez, settling and exhibiting in the city in the 1880s. He then appears to have moved to New York and was elected a member of the prestigious Salmagundi Sketch Club, New York, in 1900, exhibiting there between 1900 and 1902 alongside renowned American artists such as Childe Hassam.