Edwin Lord Weeks - A Game of Chess c1880-90's

170gsm A3 Size Colour White Satin Print

Oil on canvas, 140.3 x 186.1 cm

After years of travel through Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and India, the American artist Edwin Lord Weeks remained captivated by the sights he encountered abroad. Toward the end of his career he began an ambitious series of paintings based on A Thousand and One Nights. Having documented his travels through sketches, paintings and photographs, Weeks was well equipped with the source material for the present scene, and was careful to render the architecture, complete with its delicately carved stone latticework, as well as the costumes of the two figures. The lounging woman is swathed in elaborately embroidered silks, reminiscent of the Nautch dancing girls whom Weeks had painted in India. Additionally, architectural elements reminiscent of his Indian paintings of the 1880s and 1890s now reappear as background and decorative elements.