Lot 33: Mahmoud Mokhtar (Egyptian, 1891 - 1934)

Mahmoud Mokhtar (Egyptian, 1891 - 1934)
When Meeting The Man
signed 'M. MOUKTAR' and inscribed 'CFA PARIS' (on the base)
bronze
Height: 17 3/8in. (44cm.)
Executed in 1929

Sobhy Al-Sharouny, A Museum in a Book: The Farsi Art Collection "The Egyptian Works" Owned by Dr. Mohammed Said Farsi, Cairo, 1998 (illustrated in colour, p.58 and p.61 (detail) and illustrated p.56 ref 17/41)

Badreddin Abu Ghazi, El-Maththal Mokhtar, Cairo, 2004 (illustrated in colour twice)

"Whose heart will not be moved by the expression of strength and suppleness in the depictions of the Egyptian fellaha carrying or filling her earthen jar or struggling against the khamaseen winds, or seated in quited thought... Mokhtar's brilliant choice of subjects express the physical strength of the Egyptian fellahin as protector of the land and thus the nation."
Dr. Mohammed Said Farsi


PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. MOHAMMED SAID FARSI
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The fellaha (peasant woman) is a recurrent theme in Mokhtar's work. His most famous sculpture, Nahdat Misr (Egypt Awakening) a monumental group in pink granite, which originally stood in Midan Bab Al Hadid, but now opposite the University Bridge, represents a sphinx rising and a peasant woman unveiling. It was the first monumental granite sculpture to be created since antiquity, and exceptional in that it expresses not the likeness of a ruler, but an abstract ideal.Egypt Awakening, shows a woman removing her veil,standing next to a sphinx. It evokes both continuity and transformation within Egyptian sociey. The elements in the present piece are clearly related and highly symbolic. The graceful woman symbolises Art, the veil relates to female emancipation, and the fellaha represents Egypt herself and Egyptian nationalism.

By representing contemporary subjects and bestowing upon them the nobility of the antique, Mokhtar's sculptures symbolically unite the distant past with a longed-for progressive future.The influence of pharaonic art permeates much of Mokhtar's mature work. Using the language of ancient sculpture, in particular the massing of forms, elegant abstraction and idealization, in some ways mirrors the contemporary trends of Art Deco. In contrast, the present work, with its rough texture and heavily shrouded figure, draws inspiration from Hellenistic and Roman prototypes, especially funerary figures and depictions of the priesthood.