Bust of a Bearded Man Wearing a Turban

The inscription along the bottom of this watercolor, while hard to decipher, seems to indicate the artist's appreciation for the sitter's colorful garments. The words "orange" and "violette" are legible and correspond to the man's long orange vest over a violet kaftan. Similar figures appear in Fromentin's paintings of the 1850s. The large white turban suggests the sitter may be an Ottoman Turk, although such head coverings were common throughout North Africa.