In Halévy’s opera, La Juive, the second-act costumes are based on Delacroix’s Abduction of Rebecca, are described as the yellow fabric chosen by Delacroix in his 1832 watercolor of a Jewess. With “golden and pearl studded claps” and “jewels of inestimable value.” These costume details are also depicted in Women of Algiers. Like Delacroix’s works, Halévey and Scribe’s La Juive, use Jewish characters as symbols of oppression.Rachel, in La Juive, embodies contemporary Jewish identity, including assimilation and dual religious identity. Like Rebecca in Ivanhoe, Rachel’s character is part of what Said called the “virtual epidemic of Orientalia.”
The original version of Women of Algiers is a sexually intimate gaze into the illicit space of the female sequestered in the harem, who seems welcoming to the viewer’s forbidden gaze. The women exhibit an exotic mystique that provoke one to not look away. This provocative forbidden, yet secretly welcoming, gimps into the tabooed women’s quarters, may no doubt have contributed to the popularity of Delacroix’s work, as well as it’s political significance representing the dominion of France over colonized Algeria, which served to define his career and elevate his status as an Orientalist painter.
Eugéne Delacroix
Arab Woman Seated on Cushions
1834
Eugéne Delacroix
Two Seated Arab Women
1834
On Delacroix’s original sketch for the painting Woman of Algiers, the recorded names were, Mouni and Zohra Bensoltane, written by Delacroix as Mouney ben Sultane. Restoration of the name to its Sephardic origin reinstates Jewish identity, as Bensoltane was a common Jewish North-African name. The household Delacroix visited was probably owned by Jews who converted to Islam to escape discrimination.
The characterless depiction of the women in the second version of Women of Algiers, leads towards conclusions that this work exhibits the further objectification of Orientalized women in France and the level of intolerance to the lives of Jews in social and political realms. Delacroix may have intended to simplify this composition, but he also simplified the identity of the female figures until they lacked any character, rendering them as thoroughly lacking in any personal or social identity, they are simply the “other.” They are now merely subjects of a passive, yet complacent stolen gaze, rather than the actively erotic and forbidden sensuously welcoming gaze, that awoke so many senses for the French audience.
Jewish artist's model, Josephine Marix posed for the Glory figure in the center of Delaroche's Hemicycle. It is reported that he had severe difficulties painting her. This artist-model relationship was based on a toxic illness brought on perhaps by sexual tension which lead to the artist’s physical illness. During the mural’s restoration in 1855, Delaroche died, suggesting a noxious relationship that bore illness and death to the artist.
Balzac was influenced by Biblical beauty, as well as Delacroix’s works. He attributed the Jewess’s beauty to her Oriental racial origins. In Splendeurs et misères de courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low; 1847), Balzac created Esther, who was beautiful because, “She came from the cradle of mankind. . . . Esther would have won the prize in the harem.” Similar to Women of Algiers, the figure on the far left lounges on her cushion, the African servant is positioned to attend the idealized harem beauty, who appears to look like a belle Juive, a French artist’s model. Oriental props are used as stereotypical devices to provide an alluring environment for fulfilling the fantasy of the French imagination.
The portrait of the Baroness, one of France’s most prominent Jews, was painted during the time when France was affected by the Damascus Affair. Dr. Julie Kalman asserts the significance is an amalgamation of these elements, “the creation of an Oriental Jew as a projection of frustrations and anxieties present in French society; the reflection back of this stereotype, ultimately allowing the detractors of the Jew to depict him with greater virulence . . . . "
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