In 1923 Oprandi began traveling to Africa, first with his colleague Luigi Brignoli from Bergamo, to Algeria, then, in 1925, to Egypt. But it was above all in Eritrea that he found the highest inspiration; he stayed on several occasions during the twenties and thirties (where he met the governor Jacopo Gasparini), alternating with excursions to Somalia, Libya and Palestine; villages crossed aboard an original motor vehicle, the famous "traveling house", also designed as a home and equipped with all comforts. In 1927, following a long stay in Eritrea, he was invited to exhibit his works at the Colonial Museum of Rome in a personal exhibition placed under the high patronage of the Duchess of Aosta Elena d'Orléans. Sabderat was one of the artist's favorite destinations, on the border between Eritrea and Sudan, with vast expanses of desert dotted with small water basins and palm trees, an ideal oasis for a life on the edge and which could only attract the eye of Oprandi.
We therefore present a series of orientalist works by the Lovere painter (lots 51, 55, 58, 91) linked to the colonial period, experienced as a genuine discovery of those remote places.