Portrait of a Woman Eyes Closed.

GIBRAN, Kahlil.

Item Number: 119272

Rare original artwork from Kahlil Gibran. Graphite on paper, signed and dated by Gibran. “K.G. 1926.” The piece measures 10.5 inches by 8 inches. Double matted and framed. The entire piece measures 17 inches by 15 inches. Provenance: Waverly, December 11, 1986, lot. 378; purchased by the present owner; Private Collection, Washington D.C.; Potomack Auction 2020.

Best known for his best-selling work, The Prophet, Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, Kahlil Gibran 's drawings were displayed for the first time at Day's studio in Boston in 1904. With the financial help of a newly met benefactress, Mary Haskell, Gibran studied art in Paris from 1908 to 1910 where he worked in Marcel-Béronneau's studio and became "confirmed in his aspiration to be a Symbolist painter" (Waterfield). Gibran worked primarily in pencil and watercolor and drew inspiration from the raw color fields of William Turner's haunting landscapes. Gibran created more than seven hundred works of visual art during his lifetime and his drawings and paintings are currently on display at the Gibran Museum in Bsharri, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.