Seen from below as if from street level and posed seductively in a revealing costume, this woman is identifiable as an alma, or courtesan. The setting recalls Cairo, which Gérôme visited for the last time in 1868, some twenty years before he painted the picture.
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Gérôme was celebrated for meticulously detailed paintings evocative of scenes observed during his travels in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, which he visited six times between 1856 and 1880. His extraordinary facility at rendering varied textures is in full evidence in this picture, particularly in the woman's face seen through the green veil and her contrasting sheer black blouse. No less impressive is the careful handling of the latticework window screen, known in Arabic as a mashrabiyya (or mashrabiya).
Seen from below as if from street level and posed seductively in a revealing costume, this woman is identifiable as an alma, or courtesan. The same model is seen in a contemporary painting of 1887, The Rose (The Love Token), in which a woman at a balcony is shown as part of a street scene complete with a horse and rider and a pair of hounds (Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, New York; Ackerman no. 351). Gérôme had depicted the same blouse in two paintings of 1882, Woman of Cairo and An Almeh (sic), the former including the veil and the latter including the necklace of gold coins (both whereabouts unknown; Ackerman nos. 308 and 309).
Asher Ethan Miller 2015
Inscription: Signed (lower left): J.L. GEROME
[Boussod, Valadon & Cie., Paris, 1888; stock no. 19003, as "Femme à la fenêtre (tenant une fleur, voile vert)"; bought from the artist on January 19 for Fr 5,625; sold on the same day for Fr 7,500 to Knoedler]; [Knoedler, New York, 1888; stock no. 6005, as "Femme à la fenêtre"; sold on February 29 for $2,600 to Walker]; Thomas Barlow Walker, Minneapolis (from 1888); F. O. Matthiessen, New York (until d. 1902; estate sale, Mendelssohn Hall, New York, April 1–2, 1902, no. 44, as "A Morocco Beauty," for $1,800 to Weston); E. Weston (from 1902); sale, Christie's, New York, May 24, 1985, no. 187, as "Une almée," bought in; private collection (after 1985–2014; sale, Sotheby's, London, December 10, 2014, no. 57, as "Femme au balcon," to Lane); Kenneth Jay Lane, New York (2014–15)
Gerald M. Ackerman. The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, with a catalogue raisonné. London, 1986, pp. 135, 260–61, no. 352, ill. (color and bw), calls it "Almeh at the Window of her Moucharabieh (A Moroccan Beauty)," or "Femme à son moucharabieh" dates it about 1887, and states that its location is unknown.
Gerald M. Ackerman. Jean-Léon Gérôme: Monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour. 2nd rev. ed. [1st ed., 1986]. Paris, 2000, pp. 140, 320, no. 352, ill. (color and bw), calls it "Femme à son moucharabieh" or "Fellahin à la fenêtre, tenant une fleur," dates it 1888, and locates it in a private collection.
A photograph of the painting is mounted into the "Receuil; oeuvres de Jean-Léon Gérôme," vol. 1; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, inv. no. DC- 293 (A+, 9) -FT4. This is one of twenty-eight albums containing photographs of paintings by Gérôme presented by his widow to the library (see Ackerman 1986).
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