Women of Algiers in Their Apartment

1834

Oil on canvas, 180 × 229 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Three women rest on the floor of a dim, tiled room while a servant walks out at the right. Glowing reds, greens and golds against shadowed walls hold the eye more than any story.

First shown at the Salon of 1834.
Look at the water pipe on the floor and the slippers kicked off beside it, signs of a slow, private afternoon.
A watercolor study of Arab women from his travel album may have been used for the figures.
His costumes and objects rest on what he saw, but the closed, timeless harem is a European idea of the East. That blend of observation and fantasy runs through much Orientalist art.
The French State bought it at that Salon.

Orientalism: Western art and writing that pictured North Africa and the Middle East, often as exotic, sensual or violent.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)