01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Inji Efflatoun’s Mabrouka (She who is Blessed), with Footnotes #70
Mabrouka (She who is Blessed), c. 1953
Oil on wood panel
80 x 61cm (31 1/2 x 24in).
Private collection
Estimated for £30,000 — £50,000 in May 2025
Painted in 1953, in the immediate aftermath of Egypt’s revolution, Mabrouka stands among Inji Efflatoun’s most powerful early works: a poignant portrayal of maternal hardship and quiet resistance, rendered in her deeply empathetic figurative style. The title, Mabrouka, holds dual meaning, it may refer to the name of the central woman, or serve as a more abstract invocation, “she who is blessed.” In either case, the irony is stark and deliberate. The mother sits barefoot, breastfeeding her infant, her face cast in exhaustion, one hand pressed to her brow. Beside her, a young girl clings, her eyes wide and wary, watching the viewer as much as the world outside the frame. More on this painting
Inji Efflatoun was born in 1924 to a wealthy family from Cairo’s French-speaking aristocracy. Her mother, a divorcee, opened the first tailoring shop run by a woman. Inji Efflatoun received a strict catholic education before studying at the French Lycée in Cairo, where she became familiar with Marxism. She started painting very early on and, from the age of fifteen, took classes with Kamel el-Telmissany, one of the representatives of Egyptian surrealism. The painter introduced her to the “Art et Liberté” (“Art and Freedom”) movement, a group of artists and intellectuals of communist and anti-imperialist orientation which made use of surrealist creative processes — an influence perceptible in the artist’s earlier output.
Inji Efflatoun quickly asserted her political stance in “Art et Liberté” by engaging in intense militant activity for the better part of fifteen years as from 1940. She was one of the first women to study in the arts department of the University of Cairo, and in 1945 she took part in the creation of the Ligue des jeunes femmes des universities et des instituts (League of young women in universities and institutes), which promoted left-wing, anti-colonialist politics, and campaigned for gender equality. Working for a short while as a teacher and as a journalist, she published several manifestos and, with a small group of women intellectuals and militants, participated in numerous actions in Egypt and Europe in favour of women’s rights and peace. More on Inji Efflatoun
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