LONDON.- Fahrelnissa Zeid’s rare and compelling portraits of King Hussein and Princess Alia of Jordan lead Bonhams Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale on 28 November at the New Bond Street saleroom in London. The works are each estimated at £50,000-70,000.

The monumental portraits of King Hussein and Princess Alia are considered seminal works from Zeid’s rich and dynamic career. Born in Istanbul in 1901, Zeid’s passion for the arts led her to attend art schools in both Istanbul and Paris. This fascinating, cross-cultural trajectory allowed her to develop a unique painterly style fusing traditions of Byzantine icons and Persian painting with Modern Abstraction that she studied in Western Europe.

An important aspect of Zeid’s work is the way she conveys her most intimate and personal relationships, as highlighted in the stylized depictions of King Hussein and Princess Alia. The portraits, painted at different stages in Zeid’s career, show her long-standing, close relationship to the Jordanian Royal Family. This initially stemmed from her marriage to Prince Zeid bin Hussein in 1934, but developed through her independent hosting of artists’ saloons, which Princess Alia would attend.

Bonhams Head of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, Nima Sagharchi said: ‘We are delighted to present these important examples of Zeid’s work that display unusual insights into such public and distinguished figures of the Jordanian Royal Family. It is also great to see the superlative range and quality of Zeid’s work reach wide, public appeal through her retrospective at the Tate Modern this year.’

Elsewhere at auction, highlights include:

• Faeq Hassan (Iraq, 1914-1992), Triptych: The History of Iraq, (oil on canvas, in three parts, circa 1970) estimated at £150,000-250,000. This work celebrates the major stages of Iraqi civilization, and forms a powerful survey of the artist’s oeuvre from Cubism to Expressionism.

• Mahmoud Said, (Egypt 1897-1964), Portrait de ma Soeur (Zeinab Said), (oil on board, 1919) estimated at £60,000-100,000. Depicting Said’s beloved sister, this work is one of only handful of works completed by the artist after 1918 and shows his stylistic leaning towards the colour and brushstrokes of early Fauvist artists such as Matisse and Derain.

• Faramarz Pilaram (Iran, 1937-1982), Untitled (Alamat), estimated at £60,000-80,000, is a quintessential expression of the Saqqakhaneh school which dominated Iranian modernism in the late 20th Century. At once captivating and rich, Pilaram offers a unique, visual framework for understanding elements of popular religion in Iran.

• Manoucher Yektai (Iran, born 1922), Tomato Plant, Morning (oil on canvas, 1959), estimated at £60,000-100,000. Spending most of his career in New York, Yektai exhibited alongside contemporaries and friends such as Mark Rothko and Philip Guston. Tomato Plant, Morning is a serene, yet bold composition that offers an alternative insight to Abstract Expressionism that is so often dominated by an older generation of the New York School such as Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.