The artist was born in St Petersburg but left his native country aged 30, first visited Tunisia in 1918 and ended up living there permanently.
This large, fresco-like work in three parts, painted in mixed media on canvas, measures 5ft x 10ft 6in (1.52 x 3.2m) and shows a cosmopolitan crowd on the Avenue Jules Ferry, the main street in Tunis, in 1918.
The painting, one of the largest in the artist’s repertoire, depicts a wide variety of people of different nationalities and ages.
It is signed in Arabic lower left, in French lower right and is titled and dated Avenue Jules Ferry, Tunis, 1918 in the centre of the canvas. It was exhibited at the Salon Tunisien in 1921 and has been in a French private collection, passed down by descent.
The estimate is €150,000-200,000.
