03 Orientalist Paintings, Dance of the Almeh, with footnotes, #100

The title of this painting refers to the Arabic word analeim, meaning learned woman, which originally applied to professional female improvisers of songs and poems.  By 1850, the term meant virtually any woman dancer.  Their alluring dances, accompanied as shown here by musician playing a two-stringed cello.  European travelers came to think of these dances as a required part of their experience of the Orient.  More on Dance of the Almeh

Carl Haag (20 April 1820 – 24 January 1915) was a Bavarian-born painter who became a naturalized British subject and was court painter to the duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Haag was born in Erlangen, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, and was trained in the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and at Munich…

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