An odalisque (female member of a harem) reclines exposed in the harem listening to a servant's lute music. This painting was commissioned by King Wilhelm I of Württemberg and was executed by Ingres (French, 1780 - 1867) with the assistance of his pupil Paul Flandrin. A version of this subject painted three years earlier shows the odalisque in an enclosed room rather than with the garden vista in the background. This exotic composition, which was inspired by a passage from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Letters (1763), may have been conceived by Ingres in response to his rival Eugène Delacroix's success as a painter of Near Eastern subjects.
[Oil on canvas, 76 x 105 cm]
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