Aloysius O'Kelly (1853-1936) The Market Place, Tangier Oil on canvas, 32 x 37cm (12½ x 14½'') Signed and indistinctly inscribed 'Tangier' Provenance: Previously in the collection of John Duggan...

Aloysius O'Kelly (1853-1936) The Market Place, Tangier Oil on canvas, 32 x 37cm (12½ x 14½'') Signed and indistinctly inscribed 'Tangier' Provenance: Previously in the collection of John Duggan Exhibited: -Museum of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (detail; untraced); ' -Aloysius O'Kelly - Re-Orientations: Paintings, Politics and Popular Culture', Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 25 November 1999 - 30 January 2000, catalogue no. 35 Aloysius O'Kelly studied with the quintessential orientalist, Jean-Leon Gerome, in the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in the mid 1870's. Although O'Kelly's ethnographic realism bears a close resemblance to that of his master, the concept of an Irish orientalist, especially one so militantly republican as O'Kelly, makes very interesting viewing. By representing oriental societies as backward or 'other', many orientalist painters became the spindoctors of the imperial project. But no such patronisation is evident in the work of O'Kelly. This painting is concerned with the daily lives of the citizens of Tangier. The informality of poses and the style of painting is looser and more expressionistic than that normally associated with orientalist art. France, recognising its strategic importance and economic potential, penetrated Morocco in 1844. Although ultimately obliged to accept the territorial integrity of the country, and agree to equal trade for all, France continued to press her own advantage. One of the areas where it encountered most resistance was from the tribesmen of the Riff Mountains in the north. In so far as Market Place Tangier is stylistically close to O'Kelly's critically well-received painting, ''The Musician'', set in the Riff Mountains, it is clear from these, and other titles, that he spent a considerable period of time in Morocco in the late nineteenth century. Dr Niamh O'Sullivan

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