merely a sealed-off collection of many beautiful women, available only to the man who owns the right to them, is clearly the guiding idea in this picture. And the frankness of the artist's expression of this notion is surprising. There is no detailed pretense that it is anything other than a catalogue of the physical attributes of a particular female physical type that is shown, with small variations, in as many angles and poses as the painter can devise within the limits of a certain degree of discretion. There are slight touches of the exotic in a few (very few) fabrics, the vase in the niche, the instrument in a woman's hands. But, ultimately, these women possess only one major trait--availability. They are simply shown as having nothing to do--nothing except await the pleasure of the man for whom they spend their time grooming themselves. It is a fantasy of ownership that extends in time and number the usual presentation of a nude two and, as such, has almost a greedy feel to it.
Even though the Easternizing touches in the picture are few, however, they are noteworthy in that Ingres uses them as an excuse--and he does this in several ways. For one thing, there is a slight pretense that this painting repr
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