On the Terrace – Frederick Arthur Bridgman

Private Collection, by circa 1940
Thence by descent (sale: Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 2016, lot 812)

Rooftops and terraces were popular gathering places for Algerian women, as they afforded an opportunity to enjoy fresh air and sunshine in seclusion. Bridgman painted a number of works exploring this aspect of North African women’s lives (and interior settings), where women converse, sometimes play music and manufacture local handicrafts. In the present work the trio are adorned in multi-hued fabrics and are richly bejewelled with gold and silver bangles on both wrists and ankles. They lounge back in a light filled interior, the bright white-walled buildings of the city and the sparkling blue sea visible through the arcade.

Following his first trip to Cairo and Algeria in 1872, Bridgman turned almost exclusively to painting scenes of Egyptian and Algerian life. Putting up his family in the Hôtel de l’Orient in the Mustapha Supérieur quarter of Algiers, he used the services of a local guide, Belkassem, to gain access to private houses from which he would watch and paint daily life. Bridgman’s experiences in Algeria and his prolific creative output led to the publication of a book, Winters in Algiers. The artist remembered the city in the book as a ‘white dove settling on a hillside’, an impression evocatively conveyed in the vista visible beyond the terrace.