Maurice ROMBERG de VAUCORBEIL (1862-1943) The... Lot 49

Maurice ROMBERG de VAUCORBEIL (1862-1943) The Sheriff of Nihalla returning to camp at the Segota Pass A Festive Day in Tangier - Fantasia in the Square of the Grand Soko (market) Two oil paintings on cardboard forming a pendant, signed one in the lower right, the other in the lower left and located "Tangier". 18,5 x 35 cm. Bibliography: Elisabeth Cazenave, The Artists of Algeria. Bernard Guivanangeli publisher/Association Abd-el-Tif, 2001. Pierre Sanchez, The Society of French Orientalist Painters. L'Echelle de Jacob, 2008. Born in Belgium, Maurice Romberg left in 1887 for Morocco where he traveled for three years in the company of the archaeologist Henri de la Martinière. He settled in Marrakech for fifteen years. Dressed as an Arab, he assimilated with the people of the pink city to observe it from the inside. For certain paintings, such as those representing Fantasias, he worked on horseback, painting sketches while hiding in his burnous. His vision is that of a chronicler or an ethnographer as much as a painter. After Marrakech, he settled in Tangier where he wrote articles on Morocco, articles that he sent to Le Monde Illustré, L'Illustrated London News, and Le Journal des Débats. He also lived in Algiers for some time and stayed in Mauritania. In 1906, Maurice Romberg exhibited sixty watercolors of Morocco at the Georges Petit Gallery. The same year, he began a faithful participation in the Salon des peintres orientalistes, where he presented up to seventeen paintings in 1914. He participated in the Marseille Exhibition in 1922, where he received an honorary diploma, and in the Colonial Exhibition of 1931. As Elisabeth Cazenave writes: "Everywhere his paintings are exhibited, in Paris, Belgium, London, they are received with enthusiasm. Maurice Romberg was awarded the Legion of Honor. On the back of our paintings, handwritten explanations by a scholarly collector give us information about the artist and the subjects of the works. Particularly interesting is the commentary on the Fantasia on the Place du Grand Soko: "The buildings at the back form the seat of the Cherifian government at present; but before 1914 it was the German legation and it was there that watercolors by Maurice Romberg, although a correspondent for the Journal des Débats and the Monde Illustré, were offered to Kaiser Wilhelm II during his visit to Tangier." "In the background on the right, the coast of Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar." Another indication is that a large watercolor of this subject was purchased in London in 1913 by Sir Pole Carew, and that another replica was acquired by the Queen of Romania after her trip to Morocco.