When he came into the NHL, Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid was already a household name and potentially even the second Wayne Gretzky. And since then, hes taken the NHL by storm. He is not only the top center in the league, but arguably the best in the world. And, its possible that a 1645 painting could have predicted that McDavid would exist right?

Either way, Twitter user @marria19 pointed out that at El Museo del Prado in Madrid, theres a painting that is a spitting image of McDavid. And looking at it, it flat out is.

This is the Portrait of Francisco Lezcano, or the Nio de Vallecas, painted by artist Diego Velquez. Lezcano was a jester in the court of Spains Philip IV. Since 1819, the portrait has been in the museum.

Last season, McDavid led the NHL with 123 points through 80 games, marking his fifth 100-point campaign over the last six seasons. The 25-year-old also led Edmonton to the Western Conference Final.

In his monumental career, McDavid has accumulated 697 points (239 goals, 458 assists) in 487 career games in orange and white.

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This 1645 Painting Is A Spitting Image Of Connor McDavid -- And It's Almost Scary - Washington Hockey Now

Tucked away in a discrete warehouse off Oleander Drive, a husband-and-wife duo makes and packages a product sought after by DIYers around the world.Saltwash is a powdered trademarked formula that can be added to paint to create a weathered look on furniture and other items. The secret recipe which includes sea salt, the only ingredient disclosed is crafted and poured into cans for distribution in the Wilmington warehouse by Jamie and Carol Hunter.Jamie and I do everything, said co-owner Carol Hunter. We have an auger that we mix all the ingredients in with specific ratios. We fill each can by hand. We package everything, and we ship it out all over the world.In 2010, the couple was spending time at art markets selling products from their joint home decor line, Saltwater Salvage Designs. Before creating Saltwash, they would scope out historic homes set for demolition to salvage pieces to be incorporated into new designs, seeking out a particular weathered, rustic look. Eventually, interest in purchasing this type of wood piqued, and finding it became more expensive and difficult, Carol Hunter said. Plus, continued exposure to lead-based paint had the couple thinking twice.Once we kind of got a little weary of that, we thought, Weve got to figure this out or weve got to do something else, she said.Sanding down painted wood wasnt creating the same effect the couple had previously hunted for. What we were missing was all those layers of paint and all that texture that really authentic look, she said. We needed to replicate and figure out how to get that look.The Hunters toyed with formulas in their garage and began using a version of what later became Saltwash to recreate an antique feel. Pieces for their dcor line crafted using this formula attracted attention at markets, Carol Hunter said. People were blown away, she said. So we thought, Lets package this.Using taped-on labels drawn by Jamies cousin, the couple filled cans with their Saltwash recipe and placed them on a small corner booth at a market. A Rosie the Riveter-esque pinup logo with a signature turquoise blue caught plenty of eyes.The next market, our art was in the back corner and all the Saltwash was in the front, she said. We realized thats where we needed to put our focus into because it was getting a lot of interest and gaining traction fairly quickly.With their priorities shifted, the Hunters quickly moved to submit applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They were eligible for a patent, but because doing so required disclosing the full recipe, they opted to seek only a trademark, granted in 2016.Early on, competitors even reached out under false pretenses, acting as a customer asking about the formulation to check for allergy concerns, Carol Hunter said. People were on our heels We knew to stay ahead. To try to keep up with these big companies, we needed to move fast.During their first year, Jamie Hunter said they hand-filled 400 cans. After purchasing a machine to help fill the cans, the couple sold 10,000 by their third year.We experienced our highest growth rates during those first three years, he said.Growth continues at an organic pace; online arts and crafts creators with large followings regularly share videos using the product. One of the original sharks from Shark Tank partnered with the team in 2017, and HSN featured the product in a segment in 2020.With support from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, Saltwash landed a distributor in Ireland, which helped spur its growth in Europe. That first year we grew from selling to nobody to being in 50 stores, Carol Hunter said. Today, she said Saltwash is sold in about 200 stores in the U.S. and roughly 200 internationally. About half of all sales come from retailers and half are direct-to-consumer from the brands online shop.One of her favorite qualities about the product is how easy it is for beginning crafters to use, Carol Hunter said. It doesnt take somebody whos really experienced to use the product, and you dont have to be somebody whos always painting and always crafting and DIYing, she said. It can be very satisfying.SALTWASH

2605 1/2 Oleander Drive,28403

Number of employees:

Year founded: 2013

Top local officials: Carol and Jamie Hunter, co-owners and founders

Company description: Saltwash is a manufacturer of a paint additive that creates an authentic aged effect. The paint additive explores various faux effects weathered, rusty, vintage applied to furniture and various surfaces.

Products made locally: The original product, Saltwashs powdered paint additive, is made and packaged in the Oleander Drive warehouse. Saltwash offers various sizes, kits and accessories.

Product distribution: Carol Hunter: We have distributors set up in Europe, in Australia, Dominican Republic, New Zealand we have a lot of distribution.

What made the company decide to make its goods locally? Hunter: When youre starting out small and youre a small family business, it was cheapest for us to work right out of our garage ... Eventually we grew out of the garage and we expanded, we started doing sales worldwide basically, and so we looked for bigger workshops. Its so nice to be able to work in Wilmington Were fortunate to be able to make it work here.

Whats your target market? Hunter: Furniture flippers, a lot of DIYers, crafters, furniture painters using it to create different faux effects. Anything along that creative market outlet for anybody. Its easy to use so it takes some of the guesswork out of it.

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MADE: Paint additive becomes salty success - Greater Wilmington Business Journal

This week at Crooked Tree Arts Center in Traverse City, weve been putting on Paint Grand Traverse, our plein air (outdoor) painting festival and competition. Now in our fifth year, Paint Grand Traverse features outstanding artists from across the country. They come to Traverse City to paint, sell artwork, and compete for major awards. The week also features events for spectators, students, art collectors, and kids and families. The mission of Paint Grand Traverse is to celebrate the beauty of our region, and to make fine art fun and accessible to all.

The term plein air is French, and translates to in open air. Plein air artists work outside in natural light to capture the mood and atmosphere of a scene. While the practice of making art from life goes back millenia, the plein air movement really took off in the early 1800s. Developments in pre-mixed oil paints and portable easels collided with the French Impressionists interest in depicting light and natural, candid scenes. Today, plein air painting enjoys enduring popularity with artists and art lovers around the world. Paint Grand Traverse is a relatively new entrant among national plein air events, but it is quickly becoming a bucket list festival for professional plein air painters and art collectors alike.

Over the course of this week, our 36 featured artists have created well over 200 paintings depicting scenes from Leelanau County, Old Mission Peninsula, Traverse City, and Elk Rapids.

Paint Grand Traverse includes several featured painting locations, which are great places for spectators to catch artists at work. Featured locations this week included The Botanic Garden at Historic Barns Park, Black Star Farms, Dougherty Mission House, Suttons Bay Ciders, Twisted Fish Gallery, Delamar Resort, and more. When the artists werent at one of these locations, they were free to follow their bliss, and seek out their own inspiring views and vistas.

The marquee event of the week is this evenings Collectors Gala. Tonight, we will unveil the juried collection of artwork, and announce our major award winners. Guests will also enjoy creative tasting tables, wine, live music, and have the first opportunity to shop the collection. As of press time, Gala tickets are still available and can be ordered through our website at paintgrandtraverse.com/GALA.

Tomorrow, Saturday, were debuting a new Paint Grand Traverse event, an art-themed Community Block Party.

Its a full day of free, family-friendly art activities at Crooked Tree Arts Center and Hannah Park on Sixth Street.

The day includes a Pint-Sized Paint Out for Kids in the morning, Quick Paint Competition in the afternoon, live music, food, and a street fair. Its also the public premier of the Paint Grand Traverse week artwork in our galleries. We couldnt think of a more perfect way to wrap up our fifth annual event than to throw a party for the friends, neighbors, and visitors who have helped make Paint Grand Traverse a great addition to summer in Traverse City!

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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Creatively Centered: Paint Grand Traverse wraps week with gala, block party - Traverse City Record Eagle

The Marketplace at Pirna

A decades-long battle over ownership of a painting once sold to Adolf Hitler's art collector was recently resolved in favor of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

"The Marketplace at Pirna" by Bernardo Bellotto has been a part of the museum's collection since 1961. However, the grandchildren of Max Emden, a German Jewish art collector, claim that he was coerced into selling the piece to Hitler's art collector Karl Haberstock in the 1930s.

The family argued they should have ownership of the painting as his heirs, but a ruling by a federal judge earlier this month will keep the painting at MFAH.

The Monuments Men and Women, who work to return "cultural treasures" to their rightful owners, recovered the painting along with two others by Bellotto following World War II. Emden had sold all three to Haberstock in June of 1938 for 60,000 Swiss francs.

Monuments Men Foundation Chairman Robert Edsel, a guest on Tuesday's Houston Matters, said the group sent the painting to the Netherlands after the Dutch government claimed in 1946 that they were searching for it.

However, there are "multiple versions" of a Bellotto painting under the same name, Edsel said.

"(The Monuments Men and Women) erroneously thought that one of these three paintings of Emden's was the painting that the Netherlands was looking for," Edsel told Houston Matters.

The Dutch government restituted that painting to art dealer Hugo Moser, who claimed the painting was his, MFAH wrote in a July 2021 statement. But Edsel said Moser was mistaken, and when he realized the mix up, "fraudulently" removed labels from the back of the painting and sold it to a collector who later donated it to MFAH.

"They acquired it as a consequence of a clerical error, compounded by a fraud," Edsel told Houston Matters.

But Thaddeus Stauber, MFAH legal counsel, told Houston Matters that the museum is justified in its possession of the painting, and that the sale was not made under duress.

Stauber said that when the claim by Emden's heirs was brought to the museum's attention in 2007, he and Laurie Stein a specialist in World War II-era provenance research found evidence that their ancestor had left Germany in the 1920s and moved to an island in Switzerland where he housed his art collection. Emden initiated and conducted the sale of "The Marketplace at Pirna" to Haberstock through Jewish Gallerist Anni Caspari, museum officials said.

While Stauber acknowledged Emden may have felt some level of stress in Germany during Hitler's rule, he claims that Emden did not face the same level of pressure while in Switzerland and that it was his decision to sell.

"After the war, we discovered that Mr. Emdens son had submitted for claims of property that was lost in Germany, but had made no claims to these particular artworks," Stauber said.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith P. Ellison dismissed the suit on May 2 on the basis that the court could not interfere with the choices of other sovereign governments under the "Act of State" doctrine, referring to the role of the Dutch government in "mistakenly" returning it to Moser.

MFAH has maintained that Haberstock met Emden's asking price of 60,000 Swiss francs, which was received in Emden's Swiss bank account, and that no evidence of coercion has been confirmed.

Emden's heirs are permitted to appeal the U.S. federal court's decision or file another lawsuit in the future.

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Court sides with MFAH in dispute over painting once sold to Hitlers art collector - Houston Public Media

As part of our ongoing "Getting to Know Your Local Businesses" series,we sat down this week with Dave Cole, owner of Coastal Painting Associates.

How did you decide to get involved in this line of work? How did the business get started?After over 20 years as a Corporate Recruiter and Manager I decided to return to my roots. I began painting in high school and later worked part-time in a hardware store mixing and selling paint. So, I was familiar with the products and processes.

Tell us a couple things you are proud of about your business. What are you known for? What separates you from the competition?We pride ourselves on our flexibility to meet our customers needs, our attention to detail, and our fluid processes. We recognize the hardship a paint project adds to our clients lives and view our role as making this as painless as possible. We operate under the camping motto: leave it cleaner than you found it!

What is your favorite part of running this business?Seeing the finished project and the satisfaction on the faces of our clients! Thats really what its all about.

Who is your ideal customer/client? Who do you serve best?Those who appreciate quality work and view their home as an investment they want to protect and be proud of.

Are there any special promotions, annual sales, or special events that you'd like to mention?Currently we are offering 15% Off any painting project.

Is there any other information you'd like your potential customers/clients to know about your business?We are A+ BBB Rated (we are accredited), insured and our references are amazing! The thing I hear most often from my clients is that we respond. We have old school integrity, and it shows!

How do you see your business growing and improving over the next couple of years?We have incorporated new systems internally this year and will continue to look for technology to help run the business. Houston is growing and so are we!

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Interview With Dave Cole of Coastal Painting Associates - Kingwood

Photo Taken In Milwaukee, United States

Ever since he was a young boy growing up in Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan, Khari Turner (b. 1991) has been drawn to water. Turner has found a unique way of continuing that connection by incorporating water sourced from lakes, rivers and oceans with personal associations or connections to Black history into his contemporary figurative paintings.

To reflect the composition of the human body, he mixes paints composed of almost 60% water. He also uses his found water as a primer applied to canvases before painting.

Now through July 10, 2022, the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, WI presents Turners first solo museum show in his home state, Mirroring Reflection, showcasing his work in a gallery overlooking the Milwaukee River, a source the artist has drawn water from for use in paintings on view in the show.

Khari Turner, Flower of the Lake, 2022. Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, sand, African mahogany, water ... [+] from: Coast of Senegal, lower Manhattan docks, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee River, Pacific Ocean.

Water was always prevalent in terms of spaces to think and spaces for me to really start questioning what do I want to do with my life, how do I want to move forward; or if I was having a tough time I'd just sit next to water, Turner told Forbes.com.

The show features 26 of his water-infused works.

It was always so calming, he remembers about coming of age around water, adding with a chuckle, and then I used to skip rocks all time.

Turners paintings are highly symbolic, combining abstract and realistic renderings of Black figures to underscore the spiritual and physical relationship of his ancestors to water. Any discussion of Black life and history in America where it connects to water must trace its roots back to the Transatlantic slave trade. Turner approaches that reality from a different perspective.

I used to try making art about that trauma, but (I thought) it's not helpful to people who are already looking at this work and know about it, Turner said.

Instead of belaboring the point, reproducing the anguish being expressed by countless other artists, he found a different way of putting the water to use.

It helps me to be able to create work with this material because I can handle having all of that information, all of the atrocities of slavery and also all of the ideas around migration and travel, but I don't have to make imagery that displays that because the material does it already, you know where these materials came from, Turner explains.

The bodies of Black ancestors thrown overboard between Africa and the Americas decomposed in the water. They became one with it. A part of them returns through Turners paintings when he sources water from the ocean.

The material tells that terrible story sufficiently.

Then I am allowed to create images of happiness and joy, but never anything that has to deal with the trauma from that water, Turner said. The water does all the heavy lifting. That frees me up as an artist to be able to create images saying I know that there's this history, but I choose to live along with it in a way that I can still talk about joy.

Khari Turner, River Steps, 2022, Acrylic, oil, ink, charcoal, African mahogany, water from: Coast of ... [+] Senegal, lower Manhattan docks, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee River, Pacific Ocean.

Doing so reveals a more authentic self.

It felt like it was a lot more personal and it was a better message if I (could take that water) and apply it to (joy)we will still ride bikes, we're still going to the park, we still are having a good time, Turner said, referencing imagery from his paintings. (Trauma from water) is a part of history, and you should know this is a part of history, but I'm not going to stop being an artist. I'm going to be here doing what I want to do and I want to be able to create joy even though I know this history.

Mirroring Reflection follows Turners solo international debut at the 2022 Venice Biennale this past spring where a presentation of his paintings remains on view through November at Palazzo Bembo to coincide with the ongoing Super Bowl of contemporary art.

He spent the month of May in Stockholm, Sweden preparing a show of entirely new work for exhibition there this summer.

Coming off a residency during the pandemic in Venice, CA with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University to his credit, the increasingly global artist who now lives in Brooklyn is undoubtedly on the verge of a major career breakthrough.

Despite that international success, Turner considers the MOWA show an early career highpoint.

The people who really influenced my work or who grew up seeing me got to see that show, he said. My high school art teacher came to that show and people who I used to work with, so it's really an amazing moment. Venice is great and hopefully one day I get my own pavilion to represent the United States, but it was definitely different being able to give back to (my) community, making artwork and showing it, (hoping) this might remind (visitors) of home because a lot of these images are based on me growing up (in Milwaukee)kids on bikes, going to the pool, sitting in class.

Museum of Wisconsin Art; West Bend, WI; HGA Architects and Engineers.

For additional insight into Turners evolution as a man and artist, he recommends a visit to Klode Park in Whitefish Bay, a community just north of downtown Milwaukee and less than an hours drive from MOWA.

It's the best park I've ever been to and is really where I got a lot of my motivation and where I grab water from when I use Lake Michigan water for work that I make, Turner said. That park is set up where you see Lake Michigan, but the land around it curves on each side so you don't see any of the city and it's mostly all trees and when you look out into it, it feels like you're looking at the ocean.

Looking into a Khari Turner painting.

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Water Inspires And Imbues Milwaukee Native Khari Turners Joyful Paintings - Forbes

Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa may be one of the most beloved artworks in the world. Seen by millions of people each year, it is considered to be the crown jewel of the Louvres collection, an iconic work of the Renaissance, and a painting that is impossible to value because it is seen as being priceless. It has also been the target of theft and vandalism on several occasions.

Since the start of the 20th century, the painting, which was acquired by France in 1797, has had spray paint and a teacup thrown at it. This week, it was caked. In 1956 alone, two vandals tried to use a razor blade and a rock to defile it on separate occasions. Each time, the Mona Lisa has emerged without damage. (All of this doesnt count the various artists who have altered the Mona Lisas image, among the Marcel Duchamp, who famously put a mustache on a reproduction of the Leonardo painting, or the era during World War II when the painting risked being seized by the Nazis during their occupation of France.)

In short, the Mona Lisa has faced so much potential damage that even Salvador Dal was once moved to speak on all the vandalism, attributing to the painting a power, unique in all art history, to provoke the most violent and different kinds of aggressions.

To look back on this unusual art-historical lineage, ARTnews has charted below five times in which the Mona Lisa was vandalized or stolen.

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5 Times the Mona Lisa Was Vandalized or Stolen - ARTnews

Art

Ayanna Dozier

Installation view of Everything is Beautiful, 2022, at Frist Art Museum. Photo by John Schweikert. Courtesy of Frist Art Museum.

Alma Thomass paintings create portals into other worlds through color and form. And though the late artist, who died in 1978, is now regarded as a seminal painter of Abstract Expressionism, her first major museum solo exhibition did not arrive until she was 80. That show, held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972, came to fruition thanks to a recommendation by the esteemed artist and curator David Driskell. At the opening, Thomas wore a vivid geometric dress she designed herself, which matched her abstract paintings that were inspired by her love of nature and space exploration. The exhibition launched a meteoric rise in Thomass career that lasted until her death at the age of 86.

While Thomas gained success late in life, her inclusion in the art historical canon, and the ascent of her market, did not comelike many Black abstract paintersuntil the 21st century. Over the past decade, Thomass work has been included in several reparative exhibitions that have cemented her place in Modern and abstract art, such as the forthcoming Put it This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this summer. Thomas is currently the subject of a traveling, four-city retrospective titled Everything Is Beautiful, which closes on June 5th at the Frist Art Museum, before reaching its final stop, the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, this July; the show was also featured at the Chrysler Museum of Art and The Phillips Collection.

Portrait of Alma Thomas with two students at the Howard University Art Gallery, 1928 or after. Courtesy of Alma W. Thomas Papers, The Columbus Museum, GA.

Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1891 and spent two-thirds of her life living in and dealing with the effects of racially segregated environments in the United States. Her family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1907, when she was 15, to further her education; as Black Americans in Columbus, there were little to no educational opportunities beyond middle school.

In 1921, at the age of 30, Thomas enrolled in the Home Economics program at Howard University to pursue costume design; though she originally sought to pursue a career in architecture, Thomas abandoned that goal due to the lack of educational programs for Black women in the field. At Howard, her costumes caught the attention of James V. Herring, who founded the universitys department of art in 1921 and invited Thomas to join it. In 1924, Thomas became Howards first fine arts graduate. In 1934, she earned a masters in education from Columbia Universitys Teachers College.

Though she went on to a career in teaching, Thomas never ceased her painting practice. Her indefatigable approach to art shaped her painterly practice, leading her to experiment with Modern art styles like Cubism and pure abstraction over a 35 year period.

Alma W. Thomas, Untitled, 1922/1924. Alma Thomas. Courtesy of The Kinsey African American Art & History Collection.

A masterful Untitled still life from 1924 displays the inspiration she gleaned from Paul Czanneparticularly, his use of color, rather than line, to create a sense of form. Untitled is a vibrant, full-bodied painting where color is used to immerse audiences in a scene of wine bottles, a die, and other cube-like forms. The heavy use of red and pink across the painting dominate the mood, suggesting a hot, if not, sensuous tone that is heightened by the empty wine bottles. The red die is unusually large, occupying as much space as the wine bottles beside it, evoking a hint of Alice in Wonderland. This dreamlike still life evokes Thomass interest in the scene design and puppetry. Her masters thesis, after all, was focused on marionettes.

Thomas began making abstract paintings in earnest in 1960, following her retirement at age 68. That was also when she finished a decade-long practice of taking modernist painting courses at American University. In Red Abstraction (1960), she used large swaths of red against a green background and black gestural lines to minimize depth. The painting is a free-flowing atmosphere dominated by color and brushstrokes.

The painting March on Washington (1964) documents Thomass participation in the titular march alongside her friend, opera singer Lillian Evanti. In it, the outlines of the marchers bodies combine to become a swirling blur of color and movement. The result is the effect or feeling of the march, rather than the specific representation of it.

Alma W. Thomas, Untitled, 1968. Alma Thomas. Courtesy of Steve and Lesley Testan Collection, as curated by Emily Friedman Fine Art.

Thomas is best known for her distinctive, mosaic-like paintings, characterized by a heavy arrangement of warm blocks of yellow, orange, and red, bleeding into a smaller circular pattern of cool blues and purples. She began these works in 1966 with the painting Resurrection, which was made for her first gallery show at Howard University.

Her interest in colors emotive properties began after reading Johannes Ittens work on color theory. As she pursued abstraction in the 1960s, Ittens scholarship on color and emotions led Thomas to use color as a force that can positively and negatively alter space and mood.

Thomas composed the mosaic paintings for her Whitney exhibition with strips of painted paper that she cut and placed on a stretched canvas to form a grid, as in Untitled (1968). This technique allowed Thomas to carefully build up the color on each work over time, as opposed to painting her colors all at once. X-rays of select paintings in Everything is Beautiful reveal Thomas as a masterful color corrector: the excessive buildup of color in some areas suggest that she added additional layers of darker colors for contrast and used white paint in some places to dilute intensity.

Installation view of Blast Off, 1970, Natures Red Impressions, 1968, Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers, 1968, aA Joyful Scene of Spring, 1968 in Everything is Beautiful, 2022, at Frist Art Museum. Photo by John Schweikert. Courtesy of Frist Art Museum.

In Blast Off (1970), Thomas used color and shape to represent the force and speed of a rocket. This imaginative subject matter conveys Thomass desire to escape or build another environment devoid of racial oppression; as Sun Ra put it, space is the place. In a 1979 Washington Post interview, Thomas shared her preference for being defined as an American artist rather than a Black artist. She said this precisely because her experiences as Black woman were, to her, distinctively American insofar as it was the United Statess segregationist policies that shaped her life and practice.

In spite of racial oppression, Thomass career did gain an audience during her lifetime and her renown has only continued to soar in the years since. The expansive world-building that emerges through Thomass deft use of color transforms audiences into space travelers. Even now, decades after her death, in seeing these paintings, Thomas sends us to the moon and beyond.

Ayanna Dozier

Ayanna Dozier is Artsys Staff Writer.

Thumbnail image: Portrait of Alma Thomas at Whitney Museum of American Art exhibition opening, 1972. Courtesy of the Alma Thomas papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution and Alma W. Thomas, Blast Off, 1970.

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How Alma Thomas Arrived at Her Seminal Style of Vibrant Abstract Painting - Artsy

"Dervishes" by Egypt's Mahmoud Said - social media

CAIRO 2 June 2022: Bonhams Auctions sold many paintings of the pioneers of Egyptian plastic art, including the artist Mahmoud Said.

The auction house sold nearly five paintings, including the Tomb, but they all could not exceed the price of the Dervishes by Mahmoud Said.

"Dervishes" by Egypt's Mahmoud Said - social media

In April 2010, Christie's Auctions sold the "Dervishes" for $2.434 million. At the time of its sale, it was recorded as the most expensive painting drawn by a Middle Eastern artist in the modern era. The painting dates back to 1935.

Dervishes is one of Saids early works. It shows six Mevlevi dervishes with similar features and similar clothes, and with differences in the position of each of them while performing religious remembrances in the Ottoman eras. Throughout his artistic career, Said worked on the religious topic, and the ideas of death, burial, the afterlife, mysticism and worship.

Said painted the "Dervishes" in 1935, in the phase of employing Western methods in painting, but he was the unique model that digested these methods, and adapted them to draw intimate Egyptian paintings.

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Mahmoud Said's painting 'Dervishes' holds its position as most expensive in Middle East - Egypt Today

Queen Elizabeth II was late and I soon realized that she doesn't like to be late. The first words Her Majesty The Queen spoke at the first sitting of our portrait painting sessions in the autumn of 2011 was an apologyof sortsnot to me directly of course. Goodness, I couldn't possibly even imagine the thought of the Queen apologizing to me.

But she made a comment about being annoyed by her late arrival for reasons which I frankly cannot remember because I was too busy being in a state of shock that I was standing there in the very presence of living historythe monarch who, now 96, marks her Platinum Jubilee this weekend.

Much of my sittings with the Queen for the three portrait paintings I'd done of her are a bit of a blur, as it was one of those astonishing moments of sheer disbelief in life where you think: "Did that just happen?"

But what I do remember first and foremost about the Queen is the directness of her gaze. The portraits I'd done of her are not the most characterful pictures. But I knew I wanted that unforgettable gaze in her gray blue eyes to be captured in my paintings.

She can go from looking quite serious to having this incredibly beautiful, radiant smile. We've all heard the Queen's voice before in public. It's quite high-pitched, but she's also got this shrill, infectious laugh that makes you feel as if the sun's come out.

I think her laughter is one of the most ordinary things about this extraordinary woman. She laughed a lot while telling me all sorts of random stories, which were mostly to keep herself awake, really, at these sittings. She recalled sitting with Philip de Lszl, the late portrait painter and one of my great inspirations, who painted the Queen as a child back in the early part of the 20th century.

As she was so young at the time, she remembered she didn't enjoy the sitting because he kept on saying things like: "Get back into your chair" and "stop wriggling." But little did the future queen know that portrait sittings would be one of the many aspects of her role later in life as the head of the Royal family.

Even if she arrived late, you damn well knew she was in the room. I can still remember how fast my heart was beating out of my chest and my hands were sweaty when she first arrived for the first portrait wearing the glorious robes of the Order of the Garterthank goodness she was wearing gloves when I shook her hand. But thankfully adrenaline soon took over and once I had my brushes in my hand, I was more in my element and I realized there is a job at hand.

Surprisingly, my sittings with the Queen were rather low-key, with just a handful of staff with her. Once the photographer had finished taking various snaps of her, I was left in the drawing room with the Queen, her diary secretary and her dresser. I wasn't given any special briefing about what to do or not to do in her presence but I knew I wasn't going to go arrange the jewelry around her neck anytime soon.

And the Queen could be direct and abrupt when she needed to be. During the sitting for my second portrait of her in the spring of 2016, which was for the Royal Company of Archers and saw her wearing the robes of the Order of the Thistle, I managed to ask the Queen: "Ma'am would you be able to put your shoulders to the door and turn to face me," in a bid to get more of her neck in the portrait, as it's more flattering, to which she replied: "I can face the door or I can face the window but I can't do both."

If her dresser would take too long to adjust her robe at the sitting, she wouldn't hesitate to say: "Stop fiddling with that now."

But she was very obliging to me at the sittings, even though it would have been easy for her to get impatient and just say even from the first sitting: "You know what, I'm 85 and past all this and don't fancy doing this." She wanted to be obliging as she knew I was under pressure to finish the pieces.

The one thing she absolutely did not like was being thought of as frail or incapable in some way and she is neither of those things. For all of our sittings, which were each about an hour long, the Queen remained standing the whole time. Yet when her secretary would come around with a chair, she'd decline the offer without a second thought, as if to say: "Stop putting 10 years on me, I'm actually fine."

It's hard to know whether I truly gathered anything about the Queen's personality in the short time we spent together. But what I can say is she was entertaining herself as much as us in the room. She tried to make the experience interesting and honestlyshe's just good fun to spend time with.

A renowned mimic, the Queen actually did an impression during one of the sittingswhich I really cannot reveal and will have to take with me to the graveand had me in stitches. I remember how her face would light up when she talked about her horses and dogs, as she loves animals. It's part of the reason why I decided to work her four dogs into an additional version of her first portrait, even though they were not at the sitting, as they're such a huge part of her life.

At one point during a sitting for the first portrait in the drawing room of Buckingham Palace, which faces Green Park, the Queen stared out the window and said: "Oh look, here he comes again," referring to a man in a green tracksuit who was obviously running laps around the park for his usual morning run but had no idea that the Queen had been watching him.

Much of our conversations revolved around the traditions and duties that come with her roleshe loved explaining things and I was taken aback by her encyclopedic knowledge, talking me through the insignia on her robes and what they meant. She knew her stuffdown to the smallest detailsand it just showed all the more how important her role is to her.

What struck me most was that, as much as being committed to the monarchy, she genuinely finds merit in all the traditions and customs she's having to partake in, such as these countless portrait sittings.

She's got such a lively sense of humor and I think it's what allows her to embrace and rather enjoy the eccentricities of her role and what makes the monarchy, both behind closed doors and in the public eye.

She's so observant and has a great sense of the absurd in her role, including sitting for a portrait painting, which in the modern age of photography could come across as outdated in some ways. But she would never think to criticize or make fun of it in a way that was disrespectful to the institution that is the monarchy.

At the end of the third sitting for the first portrait, she asked: "May I have a look?" and came around to have a peek. So what did the Queen think of it? Perhaps unsurprisingly, she remained mostly poker-faced, being very polite and perfectly pleasant, as I think there is a general unspoken policy for the Queen to not say anything one way or another about her portraits to avoid upsetting anyone.

But I have to assume she must have at least not hated the final result because when Royal Mail, who commissioned the piece, couldn't accommodate the version of the portrait that included her four dogs, they gave it to the Royal Collection. So that piece is currently hanging in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.

I wasn't looking at the Queen like a grandmother figure or a friendI was looking at her as my monarch and the portraits reflect how she felt to me at the time we'd metwhich was simply majestic.

The Queen is dedicated, steadfast and the embodiment of stability to her country and I hoped to convey that in my paintings of her. She has been through so much and met so many interesting people around the world and been part of so many different events that have happened over the years. It's extraordinary, what's embodied in this one person.

If I were given another chance to paint a portrait of the Queen, I'd love to paint her in a headscarf on a horse. I think there's something marvelous about her going horse riding, one of the more dangerous sports in life, wearing merely a headscarf. That probably says even more about her than anything elsethat nobody can tell the Queen what to donot even to wear a protective gear for her own safety.

Looking back over the 70 years of her reign, what stands out most to me is her consistency. She's come to the forefront at poignant moments in life and breathed some wise words based on her huge amount of life experience and I think she should say them more often.

We have the benefit of her wisdom and a little snippet from her goes a long way, because it's got gravitas. You can't live for 96 years and not be wise, really. So I hope she goes on to say more for many more years to come.

Nicky Philipps is an accomplished British painter whose various works can be found in public and private collections worldwide. She lives in the U.K. For more information, see nickyphilipps.com. You can follow her on Instagram @nickyphilipps .

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Soo Kim

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'I Painted The QueenShe Was Surprising In So Many Ways' - Newsweek