Adrien Jean LE MAYEUR DE MERPRÈS (1880–1958) Djibouti, the market, watercolour, gouache and graphite on paper, signed and dated in the lower right-hand corner ‘Djibouti, marché / J. Le Mayeur’. Circa 1920–1927. 21 x 26 cm (image size). Note: A travel painting by the Belgian Orientalist and Impressionist painter who became the ‘Master of Bali’. After serving at the front, Le Mayeur travelled through North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, India, Cambodia and Tahiti, before settling in Sanur, Bali, in 1932, where he married the legong dancer Ni Pollok, his exclusive model. His house is now the Le Mayeur Museum, and his Balinese paintings are among the highest-valued works on the Asian art market. This sketch, produced whilst stopping over on his journey to the East, already foreshadows the saturated light, the use of negative space and the colourful brushwork of his Sanur scenes. The minaret with its double gallery and lantern is in all likelihood the Hamoudi Mosque, a landmark of the historic souk and the present-day Mahmoud Harbi Square.