Mother with child 1916

Mother kneeling on the ground holding a child on her lap. The mother is dressed in a peasant costume with a headscarf covering her head and neck, the child in a light-colored robe. Indicated interior, through the open window in the left background of the picture a building is visible.

JQAW# G_1916_030
Oil on canvas 40 x 38 cm
Signature: J. Q. Ɑdams Barbarossi IV. 16
Unknown private collection.

This sketchy portrait was painted in 1916 in Barbaluši (also Barbarosi, today Barbullush) near the Skutari Lake in Albania (border with Montenegro). The coarse, rapid brushwork gives the painting an expressionist character. The exoticism of Albania's mixed Muslim/Christian population probably prompted this genre study.

Cross-references

Paintings from the Skutari period:

Going to church.
Lead-roof mosque (lost).
Cattle market (lost, LOST ART!!).
Blacksmith shop (lost).
Children in factory.
Mother and child (this work).
Noble Albanian woman (lost).
Albanian spy (lost).

Exhibited

Literature

Provenance

Unknown.
Neumann Gallery, Vienna, 1955.
Arthur Pepper New York (export BDA Zl 1792/55). Unknown.
Auction Dorotheum Vienna 4-7.11.1969 Lot 301.
1970 Export to the USA, New Orleans (BDA ID# 132730)
Unknown.
Auction Dorotheum Vienna 15-18.10.1974 Lot 381. Unknown private collection.