Boby
An elderly bearded man sleeps on a bench
Watercolour, gray-black wash and pencil on tracing paper
By Numa Patlagean (Russia 1888 - France 1961)
Also known as Nuhem Ber Patlazhan, Naum G. Patlazhan

Signed with pencil ‘Numa Patlagean’ and titled (?) ‘Boby’ lower margin, hidden by the frame.
Sheet 42.5 cm x 49 cm (16" 6/8 x 19" 1/4)
With frame 50.5 cm x 59.5 cm (19" 7/8 x 23" 7/16)
Jewish French sculptor born in Bessarabia, Russia, Numa Patlagean emigrated to Switzerland and then to France; in the 1910s he settled in Paris and studied in the studio of Aristide Maillol.
In the early 1920s he moved to the United States where he held several solo exhibitions (sculptures, portraits of Sholem Aleichem, A . Kerensky, Oscar Wilde, Gustav Mahler etc)
At one point he returned to France and died in Antibes.