Vasili Fedorovich (George Wilhelm) Timm (RUSSIAN, 1820-1895), Orientalist- Knoble Family, oil on canvas, signed in Latin l.r., 25-1/4" X 21 3/4"
In April 1845 Timm traveled from Paris to Algiers with his teacher Horace Vernet (1789-1863) on what was to be an influential voyage for both artists. Timm completed numerous landscape, ethnographic and character studies which formed the basis of a series of paintings which the artist completed on his return to France in June 1845, that includes "Algerian Woman Teaching a Child to Walk" (The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). These charming scenes of everyday life in North Africa mark a crucial departure from Timm's usual repertoire of formal portraiture and battle scenes and demonstrate the artist's eye for detail and composition. In the offered work Timm has assembled an exotic still life of typical Ottoman artifacts, would have intrigued and excited a European viewer, such as the silver pen box and inkwell, or divit, which has been placed on top of a beautiful octagonal table with inlaid ivory. Behind the scribe, an ottoman firman, a royal decree, is attached to the wall adorned with the gold Imperial cypher of the Sultan.