01 Paintings by the Orientalist Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, with footnotes, 36

Raphael von Ambros, 1845-1895, AUSTRIAN

THE BAKER'S SHOP, CAIRO, c. 1889

Oil on panel

38.5 by 47cm., 15¼ by 18½in.

Private collection

Von Ambros established his reputation as a masterful observer of scenes of everyday life in Cairo, painted with the greatest attention to verisimilitude and detail.  

Here,  a woman wearing a black niqāb and a lapis lazuli necklace serves refreshments of freshly baked Egyptian flat bread known as aish baladi and bowls of milk or water bread to passers-by. Opening on to the street, her stall offers other local produce, including eggs and vegetables.


Von Ambros settled in Paris where he found a ready market for his Egyptian subjects. Inspired by his first hand observations during his travels, he was aided by sketches and no doubt by photography. More on this painting

Born in Prague, Raphael von Ambros was a pupil of Hans Makart (1840-1884) at the famous Vienna Academy, where he would have studied alongside an extraordinary generation of Orientalist painters such as Jean Discart (French, 1856-1944), Ludwig Deutsch (1855-1935) and Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932). Like his contemporaries, Ambros found the perfect audience for his Cairo street scenes at the Paris Salon, where he exhibited from 1887. More on Raphael von Ambros

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