Pieter Ouborg (DUTCH, 1893-1956)

Just before Ouborg went back to Holland in 1938 he painted the present lot as a hermetic work of a figuratively surreal landscape of a place of sacrifice from archaic times.

To Cricri, who bought the painting in 1946, he wrote in 1939 how deep this works was rooted in his East-Indies past "and with deep nostalgia I think back on the altars where I have made sacrifices, far away in Java, after long pilgrimages and to which destiny threatens to deny access for ever for aimless, wandering, tender and desperately longing people' (Ten Duis, op cit, p. 49).