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Dimensions: measurements 37 5/8 by 18 1/2 in. alternate measurements 95.5 by 47 cm.
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Provenance: Mr. Aharon Sacharov, Israel
Thence by descent
Purchased from the above by the present owner
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Notes: Painted in the 1930s.
PROPERTY PREVIOUSLY FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. AHARON SACHAROV, ISRAEL
Born in Jerusalem in 1909, Moshe Castel came from an old Spanish family from Castile, Spain, which escaped the 15υth century Inquisition to the land of Israel. His father was a Rabbi and a Torah scribe. It is mostly because of his Jewish Sephardic background that his early works of the 20's and 30's are very much indebted to the Oriental style. This made him stand apart from many of his Ashkenazi contemporaries who brought the influence of Eastern European culture to their oeuvre. 'The visual surroundings in which he [Castel] grew up were filled with specimens of Jewish ceremonial art of oriental origin and flavour - cameos, medallions, plates, parchments, manuscripts and scrolls, Turkish and Bucharan textiles and dresses, Torah crowns, Torah mantles and ark curtains and lamps, all with Eastern ornaments' (Avram Kampf, Chagall to Kitaj; Jewish Experience in 20υth Century Art, London, 1990, p. 124). In the present work, Castel sets the Picnic scene on a trompe l''oeil parchment, the men with their tarbooshes and the women with their veils, with dress clearly deriving from Bucharan and Turkish costume, the strong bold colors and the naïve stylization revealing the influence of Persian miniature painting. As Cecil Roth observed, 'The pictures he did in Paris often bring to mind the delicacy of ancient Persian miniature painting' (Cecil Roth, ed., Jewish Art, an illustrated history, Tel Aviv, 1966, p. 920). In 1927 Castel traveled to Paris after studying at Bezalel and remained there until 1939. It is during this period that the present painting was painted. And although this present work appears at first glance to be removed from any European modern influence at closer inspection one can see in the depiction of the elongated necks and the stylized profiles the transformation of Modigliani's influence into an oriental setting.
