See it on your real wall in AR
Scan to open on your phone, then tap “View in AR”.
Get Notified
Be the first to know about new works by Tahia Halim.
Tahia Halim (1919-2003) Nubian Girl with a Jar, 1978
New accounts are approved at once and can bid up to €5,000 per bid; verify your identity in your account to bid without a limit.
Ask on WhatsAppBid on this lot
Already have an account? Sign in and you’ll come straight back to this lot.
Create an account to place a pre-auction bid. We’ll email you a 6-digit code to confirm your address.
Confirm your bid
Confirm your bid of €6,000.
If you win at €6,000 you will pay ≈ €7,500 incl. 25% buyer's premium.
Your maximum bid
We bid for you, one step at a time, only as far as needed and never above this figure. Other bidders never see it.
Minimum 6,000 €. Bids step by 500 €.
Withdraw your bid
Withdraw your maximum bid of €0 on Lot 20? This cannot be undone.
Details
Signed ‘T. Halim’ (lower left); signed and inscribed in Arabic and dated 1978 on the reverse.
Sizes:
Artwork: 70 × 50 cm | 27.6 × 19.7 in
A girl sits cross-legged on the ground, a blue veil over her black hair and an orange dress gathered about her, her hands folded around a large clay jar in her lap. She looks straight out with the wide, almond eyes of a Coptic icon. Behind her rise the white domes of a Nubian village, each topped with a crescent, and three palms lean in from the sides. The figure is built in thick strokes of the knife, blue against orange; the village is scraped back to chalky ochres and greys, so that it reads like a painted wall behind her.
Nubia was the great subject of Tahia Halim’s life. In 1962 she travelled up the Nile with the artists sent by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to record the villages that the High Dam was about to drown, and for the next four decades she painted from that memory: women and children, boats, weddings, the domed houses with their painted doors. This panel of 1978 has all the marks of her mature style, the rough, fresco-like surface, the earth colours she made her own and the monumental stillness of a single figure. It is signed on the front in Latin letters and on the reverse in Arabic with the date, as she marked her paintings of these years.
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by an Egyptian collector, Cairo, in the late 1970s.
Acquired from the above in 2002.
Private Collection, Berlin, Germany.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Condition Report
Oil on hardboard panel. The impasto is stable and the colours are fresh; minor rubbing at the edges and corners, and some old staining on the reverse of the panel; unframed. Please contact us to request a detailed Condition Report.
Shipping
Packed as size M (up to 80 × 60 cm) · 70 × 50 cm
- Transport and packing ()
- €
- Made-to-measure wooden crate (works over 20,000 €)
- €
-
€ (the low estimate to start)
- + €
Insurance is optional. It follows the final hammer price, so with insurance the total moves with the bidding. Indicative rates of our shipping partner MBE for packing and door-to-door transport; the final quote is confirmed after the sale. Import duties and taxes outside the EU are paid by the buyer.
We coordinate packing and shipping on your behalf, with insurance available if you’d like it — or you’re welcome to arrange your own. Please see our Shipping Information page for full details before completing your purchase.
Authenticity & Buyer Information
This lot is catalogued under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating and condition are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by our Conditions of Sale.
Buyers should review the catalogue carefully and raise any questions before bidding; additional information is not ordinarily provided after the auction.
Full Shipping Support
We coordinate professional, insured shipping worldwide, for auction and gallery purchases alike.
Expert-Curated Selection
Every lot is reviewed and vetted by our specialists before it reaches a sale.
Secure Payment
Pay by card for purchases up to €10,000, or by secure bank transfer for larger amounts.
Inquire about this lot
Have a question about this work?
Fill out the form below and our team will get back to you shortly.
Market context
Nubian subjects in oil on board by Tahia Halim have sold for 43,750 GBP at Bonhams (2017, 84 x 76 cm) and 68,500 USD at Christie's Dubai (2010, 50 x 50 cm, painted in 1963), both including premium; her works of the 1970s are usually estimated lower, a 1976 panel of 60 x 40 cm carrying 7,000–10,000 GBP at Sotheby's in 2025.
| Date | Sale | Work | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 November 2017 | Bonhams, London | Three Nubians, oil on board, 84 x 76 cm | 43,750 GBP with premium |
| 27 April 2010 | Christie's, Dubai | Face of a Nubian Girl, 1963, oil on board, 50 x 50 cm | 68,500 USD with premium (estimate 30,000–40,000) |
Prices as published by the selling houses, including their buyer’s premium, in the currency of the sale. Estimate for this lot: €8,000–12,000.
What it costs
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included. There is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee.
| Starting price | Low estimate | High estimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hammer price | €6,000 | €8,000 | €12,000 |
| Buyer’s premium 25% (IVA included) | €1,500 | €2,000 | €3,000 |
| Total on auroraathena.com | €7,500 | €10,000 | €15,000 |
| Total through a bidding platform (30%) | €7,800 | €10,400 | €15,600 |
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%: the same hammer of €12,000 costs €15,600 there against €15,000 here. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator below gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
Questions about this lot
How does the estimate compare with the artist’s recent auction results?
Nubian subjects in oil on board by Tahia Halim have sold for 43,750 GBP at Bonhams (2017, 84 x 76 cm) and 68,500 USD at Christie's Dubai (2010, 50 x 50 cm, painted in 1963), both including premium; her works of the 1970s are usually estimated lower, a 1976 panel of 60 x 40 cm carrying 7,000–10,000 GBP at Sotheby's in 2025.
The results we compared are listed under “Market context” on this page, each with its source, so you can check them.
What will this lot cost in total?
Bidding on this site, the buyer’s premium is 25%, Spanish IVA included, and there is no VAT on the hammer price and no card fee: at the starting price of €6,000 the total is €7,500; at the low estimate of €8,000 the total is €10,000; at the high estimate of €12,000 the total is €15,000.
Through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Drouot or Bidspirit the premium is 30%, so the same hammer of €12,000 costs €15,600 there. Shipping and insurance are quoted separately; the estimator on this page gives the figure for your country. Buyers outside the EU pay no Spanish tax on the lot; the destination’s import rules apply (United States: original paintings and drawings enter duty-free; United Kingdom: 5% import VAT on art). Card payments are accepted up to €10,000; larger amounts by bank transfer.
How is this lot catalogued?
Under the artist’s name without qualification. Provenance, dating, condition and value are described to the best of our knowledge; the sale is governed by the Conditions of Sale.
Can I see the condition report, more photographs or the work itself?
A condition report with ultraviolet photographs is prepared on request, normally within two working days; the condition summary on this page is examined in-house and is not a conservator’s report. Further photographs of any detail, the reverse or the frame are sent on request. The work can be examined in our Barcelona showroom by appointment before the sale, and you are welcome to send your own conservator or specialist.
How does bidding work, and can a maximum bid make me overpay?
You can leave a maximum bid before the sale (the sale is on Saturday, November 28th - 17:00 (CET)) or bid live in our online room. A maximum bid is executed by the auctioneer only as much as is needed to stay ahead of other bidders, in the sale’s increments, never above your maximum.
Where a reserve exists it never exceeds the low estimate; a lot without a reserve sells to the highest bid at or above the starting price of €6,000.
Is there a limit on how much I can bid?
Every account is approved for bidding as soon as the e-mail address is confirmed, with a limit of €5,000 per bid until the identity is verified. The limit applies everywhere: in the live room, on the lot page and to maximum bids. To bid without a limit, verify your identity in your account on this site: it takes about three minutes on a phone, is done once, and the limit is lifted automatically as soon as the check is complete. Please do it at least an hour before the sale.
Tahia Halim
Tahia Halim was born in 1919 in Sudan, where her family was then living, and she grew up in the royal palace in Cairo, where her father served at the court of King Fuad I. She took private lessons from the Lebanese painter Youssef Trabelsi and the Greek painter Jerome, and from 1943 studied with the Egyptian painter Hamed Abdalla, whom she married in 1945. The couple spent 1949 to 1951 in Paris at the Académie Julian and on their return taught together in their own studio in Cairo.
In the 1950s she left the manner of her Paris years for an art rooted in Egyptian life, and in 1958 she received an award in the Guggenheim International competition in New York. The decisive journey came in 1962, when she travelled to Nubia with the artists sent by the Ministry of Culture to record the land that the Aswan High Dam was about to flood.
Nubia, its women and children, boats, weddings and domed white houses, became her lifelong subject. She painted it in earth colours, ochres above all, with thick paint scraped and rubbed to the texture of an old wall, and with the frontal, wide-eyed figures of ancient Egyptian and Coptic art. Critics count her among the pioneers of the modern expressive movement in Egyptian painting.
She received the gold medal for painting in 1960 and Egyptian state prizes in 1969 and 1996, and died in 2003. Her work is in the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo, the Museum of Modern Art in Alexandria, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah and Darat al Funun in Amman.
Related Lots
What collectors say about us
“The description and photos of the artwork were accurate, and I felt confident in my purchase from the beginning. The team was quick to answer my questions and kept me well informed throughout the process.”
“I had a really good experience after the sale — it was smooth, asked a question and got an answer right away. Their customer service is excellent and very fast. Definitely recommend them.”