| Images
from Vol. I of the Lost Egypt portfolios |
1
of 10
next
» |
 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."
1
of 10
next
»
|
