Henri Jean PONTOY (1888-1968) Ruelle animée des souks, oil on panel, signed lower right, 35 x 27 cm. Note: Henri Pontoy trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in Luc-Olivier Merson's studio and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Artistes Orientalistes Algériens. Winner of a grant from the Société Coloniale des Artistes Français in 1926, he travelled to Tunisia (where he joined the Salon Tunisien), then to Morocco and French West Africa. Around 1930, he lived in Ouarzazate and met Jacques Majorelle; he then taught at the Lycée Moulay Idriss in Fez and in 1933 was awarded the Grand Prix by the city of Algiers. After 1947, he went back to Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon with Majorelle, where he was awarded the Prix du Cameroun in 1951. His luminous, colourful paintings make him one of the last great representatives of Orientalism between the wars.