Harem Venus: Favourite odalisque by Fabbio Fabbi

A favourite odalisque


Agent Triple P has decided that January will be Harem month and we intend to post quite a few harem girls.  We begin with this very fine example by Italian orientalist painter Fabio Fabbi (1861-1946).

Fabbi was born in Bologna and studied both painting and sculpture in Florence.  In the first half or the 1880s he travelled to Paris and Munich.  It was his visit to Egypt in 1886 which really effected him, however, and on his return to Italy he painted many orientalist subjects and was particularly adept at catching the movement of dancing girls.  He was commercially very successful and painted many orientalist themed pictures.   Most of his orientalist women are dressed and we are only aware of a handful of nudes including some related (but not harem pictures) of slave girls.

It's a strong composition with the pale body of the girl forming one diagonal of the basically St Andrew's cross shaped composition and the dark space the other diagonal: her hip and lower trunk forming the centre of the composition.


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