The Ghawazees, or Dancing-Girls of Cairo

Method Lithograph with tint stone
Artist after David Roberts
Published London, Published Decr. 15th. 1856 by Day & Son, Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields
Dimensions Image 125 x 178 mm, Sheet 195 x 285 mm
Notes Plate 249 from Volume 6 of the small format reprint of Roberts' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. A scene of Ghawazi dancers in Cairo, Egypt. The Ghawazi were a group of travelling female dancers from the Nawar tribe of the Dom people. Their name was said to derive from the Arabic verb 'to conquer,' based on their practice of 'conquering' the hearts of their audience. The performance that Roberts sketches here must have been one of their last, as the troupe was banished from Cairo by Ali Pasha in 1834. In Roberts' view, two dancers, ornamented with bells and using castanets on their fingers, dance to the music of three seated musicians.

David Roberts RA (24th October 1796 – 25th November 1864) was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed prints of Egypt and the Near East produced during the 1840s from sketches made during long tours of the region (1838-1840). This work, and his large oil paintings of similar subjects, made him a prominent Orientalist painter. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1841.

The firm of Day & Haghe was one of the most prominent lithographic companies of the nineteenth-century. They were also amongst the foremost pioneers in the evolution of chromolithography. The firm was established in 1823 by William Day, but did not trade under the moniker of Day & Haghe until the arrival of Louis Haghe in 1831. In 1838, Day & Haghe were appointed as Lithographers to the Queen. However, and perhaps owing to the fact that there was never a formal partnership between the two, Haghe left the firm in the 1850's to devote himself to watercolour painting. The firm continued as Day & Son under the guidance of William Day the younger (1823 - 1906) but, as a result of a scandal involving Lajos Kossuth, was forced into liquidation in 1867. Vincent Brookes bought the company in the same year, and would produce the caricatures for Gibson Bowles' Vanity Fair magazine, as well as the illustrations for Cassells's Poultry Book, amongst other commissions.

Condition: Slight foxing to margins, not affecting image.
Framing unmounted
Price £30.00
Stock ID 39075

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