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Great Paintings Explained: La Grande Odalisque by Ingres
Exotic. Alluring. Problematic.
It can take a few moments for your eyes to fully acclimatise to the captivating world that opens up in this exceptional painting.
Whilst our modern insights might be troubled by the flagrant display of the nude woman before us — not by the nudity itself perhaps but by the voyeuristic gaze that the nudity implies — it is hard not to delight at the setting: the opulent couch, the peacock feather fan, the shimmering blue curtain that hangs on the right and wavers brilliantly in a gentle light, counterbalanced by the lustrous yellow fabric in the lower left that is creased with a hundred folds.
Or the smoking pipe propped up against an incense burner that sends wisps of rich fragrance into the air, indicating an entire domain of pleasure, indulgence, and the abandonment of worldly concerns.
We have entered the quarters of an odalisque, a female slave of a Turkish harem. An odalisque was a chambermaid who worked in the secluded living quarters used by wives and concubines of an Ottoman sultan’s household.
