Intimate Outsiders

The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature

By: Mary Roberts

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Hardcover | 10 December 2007

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Until now, the notion of a cross-cultural dialogue has not figured in the analysis of harem paintings, largely because the Western fantasy of the harem has been seen as the archetype for Western appropriation of the Orient. In "Intimate Outsiders," the art historian Mary Roberts brings to light a body of harem imagery that was created through a dynamic process of cultural exchange. Roberts focuses on images produced by nineteenth-century European artists and writers who were granted access to harems in the urban centers of Istanbul and Cairo. As invited guests, these Europeans were "intimate outsiders" within the women's quarters of elite Ottoman households. At the same time, elite Ottoman women were offered intimate access to European culture through their contact with these foreign travelers.

Roberts draws on a range of sources, including paintings, photographs, and travelogues discovered in archives in Britain, Turkey, Egypt, and Denmark. She rethinks the influential harem works of the realist painter John Frederick Lewis, a British artist living in Cairo during the 1840s, whose works were granted an authoritative status by his British public despite the actual limits of his insider knowledge. Unlike Lewis, British women were able to visit Ottoman harems, and from the mid-nineteenth century on they did so in droves. Writing about their experiences in published travelogues, they undermined the idea that harems were the subject only of male fantasies. The elite Ottoman women who orchestrated these visits often challenged their guests' misapprehensions about harem life, and a number of them exercised power as patrons, commissioning portraits from European artists. Their roles as art patrons defy the Western idea of the harem woman as passive odalisque.

Industry Reviews

"Transforming debates about Orientalism, gender, and cultural and political agency, Mary Roberts writes with beguiling simplicity about complicated subjects, taking her readers through a potentially bewildering maze of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural material with a voice both authoritative and accessible."--Reina Lewis, author of Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel, and the Ottoman Harem "This is an outstanding example of a truly interdisciplinary study, integrating painting, photography, travel narrative, and especially harem portraiture. Mary Roberts describes encounters between women--both British travelers and the women of Istanbul and Cairo harems--in a refreshing, innovative analysis of the historical and imaginary workings of harem imagery as forms of cross-cultural exchanges and interactions."--Julie F. Codell, editor of Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Arts & Entertainment History of Art & Design Styles Art Styles Not Defined by Date Oriental Art Society & Culture Social Groups Gender Studies Gender Studies: Women and Girls

Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: Intimate Outsiders	p. 1
John Frederick Lewis's Harem Paintings
The Languid Lotus-Eater	p. 19
"Mr Lewis's Oriental Paradises"	p. 38
British Women's Travelogues
Pleasures in Detail	p. 59
Being Seen	p. 80
Sartorial Adventures and Satiric Narratives	p. 92
Harem Portraiture
The Politics of Portraiture behind the Veil	p. 109
Oriental Dreams	p. 128
Epilogue	p. 150
Notes	p. 157
Selected Bibliography	p. 177
Index	p. 187
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Intimate Outsiders

The Harem in Ottoman and Orientalist Art and Travel Literature

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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