Bedouins

Sargent considered this powerful portrait of two men to be the keynote work of his Bedouin watercolors. His earliest critics took note of the expressive force of the carefully delineated faces, set off by the play of highlights on the saturated blues of the kaffiyeh (head scarves). Sargent otherwise described the figures, including details such as the curved khanjar (daggers) in the main figure’s belt, with the broad, expressive handling that characterizes the Bedouin subjects as a whole.