Georges Jules Victor Clairin (French, 1843–1919)
Figure Studies
Pencil on wove paper, 21 1/4 x 25 3/4 in.
Signed lower left: G. Clairin
1999.15

Clairin’s interest in the Orient was established during a visit he made to Spain in 1868 with his friend, the painter Henri Regnault (1843–1871). Spain’s Moorish history and architecture inspired many of the vivid Orientalist history paintings for which Clairin is best known. After Spain he traveled on to Tangier, where he made the kind of detailed studies of the local people and their costumes seen in this work.