SAYED SAAD EL DIN (EGYPTIAN B. 1944)
The Procession
signed in Arabic Sayed Saaed El Din (lower left), together with a section of the former backboard inscribed in Arabic name Sayed Saaed El Din / name the procession / material oil pastel
oil pastels on paper, framed
75 x 54 cm (29 1/2 x 21 1/4 in)

PROVENANCE
Private collection, UK; acquired 2016-17

Born in 1944, Sayed Saad el-Din was raised and schooled in Qena in Upper Egypt. After enrolling in the Faculty of Engineering in Minya, he soon realised that his passion lay in fine art-making. He consequently left Minya at the age of 17 and headed alone to Cairo, where he began his formal art studies at the Leonardo Di Vinci Institute, under the mentorship of modernist painter Sayed Abdel Rassoul.

The present work depicts the ancient Egyptian Tahtib procession, a traditional stick fighting martial art, which later evolved into a folk dance with a wooden stick, or as ritual mock combat accompanied by music. It is mainly practiced today in Upper Egypt and is regularly performed for tourists in Luxor and Aswan. The stick used in tahtib is about four feet in length and is called an asa, asaya, assaya, or nabboot. It is often flailed in large figure-eight patterns across the body with such speed that the displacement of air is loudly discernible.