Egyptian Dancer

1893 was the year Bernard left France. He made an inventory of his paintings in March, travelled through Italy, then Constantinople and the Aegean, and reached Cairo in November. This dancer carries that year's date, and it is painted on a piece of cardboard about 50 centimetres tall, the sort of support a man travelling light keeps to hand. Dancers and water carriers were subjects French painters had been bringing home from Egypt for most of the century, and Bernard began in the same vein, in watercolour, with women filling jars at the Nile. The firmer outlines and heavier oil paint came later in the decade, well into a stay in Egypt that ran about ten years.