Drawing on Arabian Nights

Charming exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery using drawings from their collection to explore Western artists interaction with Orientalism and the Arabian Nights stories.

The show invited us to read the pictures as a conflation of observations when traveling with the literature. The stories had been passed down orally over the years but were first published in Europe in 1701 in French.

There was a good selection of work by a range of artists. The star of the show was a study by Ingres for “La Grand Odalisque”, an exquisite nude drawing. The show explained how the idea of the Odalisque was a European construct as male artists didn’t have access to the harem or local models.

My favourite work was a sketch by Glyn Philpot again as a study for a larger work.

Closes 3 June 2023


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