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Edwin Lord Weeks
A Cup Of Coffee

- Edwin Lord Weeks was born in 1849 in Boston into a wealthy mercantile family. He began his career as an Orientalist painter in 1872 and soon started travelling to pursue his art, beginning in South America and later visiting Egypt, Persia, and Morocco. Between the 1870s and 1890s, Weeks extensively explored Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the Near East, travelling through Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Persia, and India.

Influenced by the Romantic and Orientalist movements, Weeks refined his technical skills in Paris during the early 1870s under the guidance of French masters Jean-Léon Gérôme of the École des Beaux-Arts and Léon Bonnat, who instilled in him the principles of realism and a deep appreciation for colour. He quickly rose to prominence as one of the most significant American artists in Orientalism, celebrated for his realism, technical mastery, and his documentation of life in regions rarely visited by Westerners at the time.

Weeks made three trips to India between 1882 and 1892, visiting cities such as Bombay, Lahore, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Benares, Jodhpur, and Ahmedabad. His decision to focus on India as the setting for his work played a key role in his success, owing to the uniqueness of the subject matter and the exceptional way he brought it to life. He vividly documented these journeys in letters and a series of articles for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, which were later published in his book From the Black Sea Through Persia and India in 1895.

Weeks was the first known American artist to visit India, creating numerous paintings of common people, royalty, and everyday scenes in colonial Indian cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Amritsar, Benares, Mathura, and Agra. Between 1887 and 1893, Weeks focused on the Rajputana and Malwa regions (modern-day Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh). He visited and documented life in the princely states of Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, Jaipur, Alwar, and Gwalior, as well as Kashmir, Baroda, and Hyderabad—regions he collectively referred to as the "India of the Rajahs."

A highly acclaimed artist, Weeks received a gold medal at the 1884 Paris Salon, where he first exhibited his works on India. In 1896, he was honoured with the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government. His works are widely exhibited in museums across America and Europe. Weeks passed away in Paris in 1903.

- Edwin Lord Weeks was born in 1849 in Boston into a wealthy mercantile family. He began his career as an Orientalist painter in 1872 and soon started travelling to pursue his art, beginning in South America and later visiting Egypt, Persia, and Morocco. Between the 1870s and 1890s, Weeks extensively explored Northern Africa, the Middle East, and ...

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Lot 2 of 32

FRAMING INDIA: AN EXHIBITION OF MODERN INDIAN ART

ARTWORK DETAILS

Edwin Lord Weeks

A Cup Of Coffee

Signed 'E. L. Weeks' (lower left)

Circa 1878-1879

Oil on canvas

21.75 x 20.75 in (55 x 53 cm)

NON-EXPORTABLE

PUBLISHED
Catalogue of Very Important Finished Pictures, Studies, Sketches and Original Drawings by the Late Edwin Lord Weeks, New York: American Art Association, 1905

Category: Painting
Style: Figurative