that these Western painters of the harem seemed to create with their id while many of the scribbling observers remained centered in the restrictive space of their superego.
The reoccurring image of the odalisque's sensual abandonment while lying undressed on luxurious couches as captured by Ingres in Odalisque and Slave (1842), Dinet in Moonlight at Laghouat (1897) or Delacroix in Odalisque (1845) (Croutier 31, 44, 56) contrasts with Harriet Martineau's far less romanticized account of life lived in these quarters. In "The Secrets of the Hareem" included in Eastern Life: Present and Past (1848) Martineau intentionally emphasizes the weary sense of decay enveloping the two Harems which she visited. She begins her observations with this telling disclaimer that "this subject is as little agreeable as any I can have to treat" (Hamalian 99). Eunuchs stand before a "faded curtain" (101), the chief lady sits on cushions on the floor "ill and miserable looking" (102) and overseeing one of the harem's invalids is a "sensible looking old lady who had lost an
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