Harem Venus: A favourite odalisque by Fabbio Fabbi

As I continue to replace some of my old  posts on the former Venus Observations site I am going through a period when I was featuring a lot of harem Venuses.  This very fine example is by by Italian orientalist painter Fabio Fabbi (1861-1946).  It's a strong composition with the pale body of the girl forming one diagonal of the basically St Andrew's cross shaped composition and the dark space the other diagonal: her hip and lower trunk forming the centre of the composition.  She is a confident looking lady, well aware of her position as favourite!

Fabbi was born in Bologna and studied both painting and sculpture in Florence.  In the first half or the 1880s he travelled to Paris and Munich.  It was his visit to Egypt in 1886 which really effected him, however, and on his return to Italy he painted many orientalist subjects and was particularly adept at catching the movement of dancing girls.  

He was commercially very successful and painted many orientalist themed pictures.   Most of his orientalist women are dressed but he produced a few nude odalisque paintings as well as some 'slave for sale' type pictures, which we shall look at shortly.