Rest Halt for an Arab Caravan

A camel caravan is resting on a plain after a downpour, under a sky still covered with clouds. This is a very interesting sketch from nature, dated but without a signature. However, the artistic qualities shown in the richness of its very rapid execution with broad, energetic brush strokes, as well as the arrangement of the groups of figures, with the portrayal of the clouds looming overhead and the reflections in the pools through large patches of colour, support its attribution to Ricardo de Madrazo. Throughout his career he felt a special predilection for Arab themes, on which the best of his uneven production was focused. Indeed, this artist departed for Tangiers with Tapiró (1836-1913, also an Orientalist painter) in 1877 - the year that the picture was painted - as seen in the inscription in the bottom left corner. Both the stylistic features and the letters of the inscription confirm this, as does the obvious imprint on Ricardo de Madrazo’s work of his Italian training, especially from masters such as Domenico Morelli (1826-1901). This is appreciable in the development of the composition, which is divided in the middle by the line of the horizon, thereby enhancing the importance of the cloud formations against which the figures are outlined, as well as in the sobriety of the colours, which are dark and cold, with sudden very effective patches of chiaroscuro.