![Leopold Carl Müller - A Camel Market, Cairo [c.1886]](http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1623/25907538021_655c1efec3_o.jpg)
This animated, sun-filled scene brings together many of the elements that populate Müller's best-known compositions - from the water carriers, to the squatting group of conversing men on the left, to the teacher being guided by the boy on the right. The scintillating impressionistic brushwork bear out Müller's observation that 'it makes a big difference whether you paint comfortably in your studio or whether you work out in the open, under a rapidly marching sun.'
Müller (Austrian, 1834 - 1892) made the first of his nine visits to Cairo in the winter of 1873-74, the inspiration for his first large-scale Orientalist painting Bedouin Camped Near the Pyramids which was bought by the Belvedere (Österreichische Galerie), Vienna. In 1881 he spent six months in the country, two of them in Upper Egypt, staying for nearly two months in Aswan observing the life of the Bedouins. His final, and by his own account most fruitful trip in terms of artistic output, came in 1885-86.
[Sotheby’s, London - Oil on canvas, 45 x 70 cm]