House builders, Cairo

Arthur Streeton, one of Australia's best loved painters, made this small study during his travels through Egypt in 1897. A member of the Heidelberg School, the local answer to Impressionism, Streeton spent his career chasing sunlight, and Cairo gave him plenty of it. Along the top of a pale wall, a handful of workers in flowing blue robes pause during their day's labor. Their bright garments pop against the sandy stone, which soaks up the heat and throws it back in a warm, glowing haze.

Most of the canvas is given over to that big empty wall, alive only with the marks of his brush and a spindly tree flecked with yellow leaves reaching toward the sky. Streeton was in no mood to fuss over details here. Quick, loose strokes stand in for the figures and the shimmering heat, leaving your eye to fill in the rest. The result feels less like a finished picture and more like a passing glance, the sort of ordinary moment a traveler catches and somehow keeps.

Down in the lower left corner sits his signature next to the word "Cairo," a small note marking exactly where this fleeting afternoon was set down in paint.