Detail of La Grande Odalisque by Lalla Essaydi in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, June 2018

La Grande Odalisque (Primary Title)

Les Femmes du Maroc (Series Title)

Lalla Essaydi, Moroccan, born 1956 (Artist)

Date: 2008

Culture: Moroccan

Category: Photographs, Works On Paper

Medium: Color photograph mounted on aluminum

Collection: Modern and Contemporary Art

Geography: Marrakesh, Morocco

Dimensions: Sheet: 71 × 88 in. (180.34 × 223.52 cm)

Object Number: 2012.78

"In my art I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite the viewer to resist stereotypes."—Lalla Essaydi

Essaydi’s photography explores the chargedissue of veiling and revealing that surrounds Islamic women. The women in the series Les Femmes du Maroc are enveloped in Islamic calligraphy, as it is written in henna on their skin, robes, and surrounding interiors. The text entraps them yet recalls a form of decoration often applied in celebration or for good luck. In responding to one of the defining images of Orientalist art (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Grande Odalisque, 1814) Essaydi’s image replaces a Western male perspective on “the Orient” with that of a Muslim female, and provides a contemporary reflection on a theme that stretches back several hundred years in visual art, literature, and music. (Image of "Grande Odalisque" by Ingres included on label)

Text from: www.vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-147791902