Red Hair in the Orientalism Genre

A little bit of red hair in art today. A few quite beautiful images which I came across whilst looking through artwork in the Orientalism style. So many of the paintings I flicked through in this genre were really vivid, fascinating and beautiful, but I'll just share the few which feature redheads.

Both the following paintings feature half naked women in harems. A seemingly common theme in the Orientalism genre. Not that I'm complaining about this. The first is titled Pool in a Harem and is by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. The second is titled Murder in the Seraglio and is by another French artist, this time the painter Fernand Cormon.

(Pool in a Harem - Jean-Léon Gérôme)

(Murder in the Seraglio - Fernand Cormon)

A seraglio is a living quarter that was used by wives and concubines in households in the Ottoman Empire. In modern Italian the word is spelt serraglio, and according to Wikipedia;

It may refer to a wall or structure for containment, for example of caged wild animals

Which would tend to suggest that some of these paintings portray a romanticised image of what was in reality no doubt a much more brutal world of sexual slavery. Still the artwork is very beautiful.