Harem Pool* by Jean-Léon Gérôme

This splendid work is fully part of the academic and Orientalist movement, a genre highly appreciated in France in the nineteenth century. The famous painter Gérôme Jean-Léon approaches here the traditional theme of the hammam with remarkable elegance and precision. The composition entitled “Harem Pool” features a group of women in the privacy of a traditional Turkish bath. This artistic creation testifies to the artist’s constant fascination with female beauty and oriental decors.

In a large room tiled with blue and white geometric patterns, several naked women are relaxing. In the foreground, a young dark-haired woman is seated in profile on a richly colored carpet, draped in a white cloth. To her right, a red-haired woman lies naked on her stomach on a raised platform, her head resting on a cushion. Before them, a black servant dressed in a long dark robe and wearing a blue turban holds a copper hookah. In the background, other bathers stand out in a vaporous atmosphere softened by the light. The composition is organized around the chromatic contrast between the female bodies and the blue tiles.

The painter’s pictorial technique is of absolute virtuosity, notably in the velvety rendering of the skin and the brilliance of the earthenware tiles. His mastery of oil paint makes it possible to create effects of transparency and steam of exceptional realism. This admirable work highlights the painter’s genius for color.