Wet collodion on
glass 23.5 x 29.5 cm Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute,
University of Chicago |
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Dame
turque sur divan, by Zangaki. This salon view reveals a carefully
staged and costumed odalisque, in a photograph taken by two brothers of
Greek nationality known only as G. and C. Zangaki, who lived and worked in
Egypt and Palestine beginning around 1870. Like Hippolyte Arnoux, who
documented with his camera the construction of the Suez Canal, the
Zangakis worked out of Port Said. Photographs like this answered a popular
demand for the odalisque, a purported glimpse inside the fabled harems of
the Orient. Such disparate literary sources as Sir Richard Burton's
translation of the Arabian Nights and travelers' descriptions of the
Almées, or dancing courtesans of Egypt, blended together in the Western
imagination, blurring the line between lascivious courtesans and the
sequestered inhabitants of the harem, resulting in coquettish images like
this one. Signed at lower left "Zangaki"; caption at lower right "Nr. 800
Dame turque sur divan."
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