With artist’s stamp lower right

Oil on panel

35 x 23.8 cm. (13 ¾ x 9 ½ in.)

Provenance:

Ruth and Michael Burke, Covington, Louisiana, until 2021.

This dynamic and arresting portrait by Georges Gasté depicts Nasreddin Dinet (fig. 1), the leading Orientalist artist around the turn of the century. The portrait likely dates to around 1893, the year Gasté was invited by Dinet to Bou Saâda in Algeria, where the latter had set up an artist’s colony. Dinet, with his distinctive and easily recognisable features, would have been in his early thirties at this time.

Fig. 1, Photograph of Nasreddin

Dinet, around 1910

Fig. 2, Georges Gasté, Girl from Bou Saâda,

oil on canvas, 1896, Private Collection

studying under Alexandre Cabanel. Visits to Morocco, Algeria and Palestine between 1889 and 1892 set the young artist firmly on the path of becoming an Orientalist painter. Gasté remained with Dinet for four years at Bou Saâda, an oasis town on the northern edge of the Sahara, before living in Cairo between 1898 and 1903. After travelling through Spain, Italy and Turkey, the ever-adventurous Gasté settled in India and Sri Lanka from 1905 until his early death at Madurai in 1910.

Exhibiting regularly at the Salon, Gasté painted landscapes, genre scenes and portraits (fig. 2), and was also a talented photographer. In his paintings, the influence of Dinet can be seen in Gasté’s pastel palette, as well as his mastery of the desert light, which ranges from a soft glow to a dazzling intensity (fig.3), depending on the subject and time of day depicted. However, Gasté diverges from his mentor technically, painting with energetic and spontaneous brushstrokes, loaded with impasto. This is displayed to full effect here, in what is one of Gasté’s most accomplished portraits.

Dinet first visited Algeria in 1884. He became so enchanted with the country and its people that he converted to Islam in 1913, changing his name from Étienne to Nasreddin and later going on the Hajj in 1928. Living most of the year round in Algeria, Dinet became fluent in Arabic, translating the language into French, most notably the epic poetry of Antarah ibn Shaddad.

Fig. 2, Georges Gasté, Bou Saâda, oil on canvas, Private Collection

Although Dinet had not yet converted to Islam when Gasté portrayed him in the 1890s, it is entirely natural that Dinet would wear Maghrebi garb. Not only would this be more comfortable in the Saharan climate but it also reflects Dinet’s interest in, and respect of, local customs. Wearing local clothing was a practice carried out by other French Orientalist’s of the time, such as Gustave Guillaumet. Gasté’s portrait, a striking depiction of one of the most fascinating Orientalist painters, is a testament to a deep artistic friendship as well as both artist’s love for Algeria and its way of life.