"An Intercepted Correspondence"

Posted by Tanos on Sat 13 May 06, 6:38 PM

Since last week a copy of John Frederick Lewis's "An Intercepted Correspondence" has been hanging above the fireplace in my study. I originally bought the print in the summer of 1997, and it's been in more than one frame and hung on several walls since. My view of it and its wider context has changed too, and I'd like to put my current thoughts down, now that I can sit here and glance up at it as I write.

I've always been interested in "Orientalist" art - that is, Western views of the lands formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. It started with Arabian Nights films as a child, and then I moved on to painters like Gerome. Many of these works eroticise the idea of owning female slaves, and not as American cotton plantation labourers but as companions and servants, to be enjoyed as we enjoy slaves and submissives in BDSM. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that a lot of these images are 19th century expressions of BDSM, and designed to appeal to people like us. That they were also a respectable art form, especially in France, speaks volumes about their tacit acceptance of elements of a BDSM sexuality.

Gerome's "Slave Market" of 1866 shows the clothed buyer's examination of the naked slave's mouth with his fingers, as her eyes look up towards his. The image is ambiguous: it had an abolitionist message (it was painted a year after the end of the US Civil War, and Gerome would also paint politics in his "Truth and the Well" series in defence of Dreyfus), but it also tempts the viewer to think about the pleasures of power and vulnerability.

Compared to continental Orientalism, paintings from Britain can seem reserved, self-censoring and even dishonest about what they're portraying: after all, Gerome's buyer is bargaining for unrestricted sexual access and dominion over the life of the slave, and so she stands their plainly naked for us and him to see.

For the first few years, I had Lewis and his "An Intercepted Correspondence" down as part of this British school of toned-down Orientalism. The painting shows a dozen women, who are probably all slaves of the bearded and turbanned master of the house, the bey, to the left. But they're all very, very clothed! - head scarves, layers of clothing, long sleeves, and even slippers where feet are visible.

The narrative story of the painting is based on the Victorian interest in "The Language of Flowers", an idea first introduced to Britain by Lady Mary Montagu, the wife of the ambassador to the Ottoman sultan. In 1718, she sent a "Turkish letter" to a female friend of hers, in the form of carefully chosen flowers and other objects, each of which had a symbolic meaning.

In Lewis's painting, the girl in the green dress has been discovered in receipt of the bunch of flowers, which are being shown to the bey. No doubt they have come from the girl's secret lover, have been chosen to profess his illicit feelings for the bey's property, and will result in her punishment. There's even an open window looking out over the sea to remind us of the Ottoman harem women who were tied in sacks and dumped in the Bosphorus for displeasing the sultan.

But digging a bit deeper revealed that there was a lot more to Mr Lewis than first met the eye. First, he not only visited the Orient (as painters like Gerome had started to do from the mid 19th century), but he settled in Cairo from 1841 to 1851, living in a large house in the Turkish quarter, and adopting the customs and dress of the wealthier local Turks (Egypt was nominally still part of the Ottoman Turkish empire.) "An Intercepted Correspondence", although painted years later in 1869, apparently shows part of the upper floor of that house.

But secondly, "An Intercepted Correspondence" turns out to be a reworking of another painting, "The Harem of a Mameluke Bey, Cairo: The Introduction of an Abyssinian Slave" or often just "Hhareem", which he made while in Cairo and was first exhibited just before his return to Britain in 1851. And this work, painted while Lewis really was living the life of the master of such a house, is a lot closer to the continental model: gone is the errant girl and the bunch of flowers, and in their place is a new slave, disrobing for the approval of the bey.

Lewis also wrote a description of the painting for its exhibition in Edinburgh, where it acquired the longer title and where he identified the three fair skinned women on the divan as a Georgian, a Circassian and a Greek. The assortment of ethnicities means that none of the foreground characters of this contemporary Cairo scene are actually native Egyptians!

The British author Edward Lane was living in Cairo at the same time as Lewis, and his "Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians" describes the culture in 500 pages of methodical detail. In particular, Lane explains how the harem system of wives, concubines and slaves worked, and he alludes to the ways the availability and desirability of female slaves were shaped by geography.

First, since Islam does not allow the enslavement of other Muslims, slaves had to be obtained from the borders of the Ottoman Empire - either by way of warfare; as a tax on Christian populations which had to be paid in human flesh; or from landowners in Georgia or Circassia on the southern borders of European Russia, who sold off a fraction of their serf populations each year as a kind of "cash crop".

Even the "Mameluke" bey himself is a descendent of a military class orginally obtained as slaves from the European areas of the Ottoman Empire, who became part of the Turkish "colonial" administration of Egypt.

Lane explains that "The white female slaves are mostly in the possession of wealthy Turks" - and in Lewis's painting they are represented by the three reclining women, identified already as Georgia, Circassian and Greek. Egypt's participation in the Ottoman war against Greek independence had provided many of them as captives: "Most of the white female slaves who were in Egypt during my former visit to this country were Greeks; vast numbers of that unfortunate people having been made prisoners by the Turkish and Egyptian army under Ibraheem Basha. ... A few, some of whom undergo a kind of preparatory education (being instructed in music or other accomplishments at Constantinople), are brought from Circassia and Georgia."

In contrast to the American, commercial model of slavery, in which all slaves were classed as inferiors, "The white slaves, being often the only female companions, and sometimes the wives, of the Turkish grandees, and being generally preferred by them before the free ladies of Egypt, hold a higher rank than the latter in common opinion. They are richly dressed, presented with valuable ornaments, indulged frequently with almost every luxury that can be procured, and, when it is not their lot to wait upon others, may in some cases be happy; as lately has been proved, since the termination of the war in Greece, by many females of that country, captives in Egyptian hareems, refusing their offered liberty, which all of these cannot be supposed to have done from ignorance of the state of their parents and other relations, or the fear of exposing themselves to poverty."

But the supply of these European slaves was limited and they attracted premium prices: "The price of a white slave-girl is usually from treble to tenfold that of an Abyssinian" (Lane gives the Abyssinians' price as £10-15 in 1836) "and the price of a black girl about half or two-thirds, or considerably more if well instructed in the art of cookery." For this reason, and perhaps reflecting a preference for women from neighbouring areas of Africa rather than Europeans, "The concubine-slaves in the houses of Egyptians of the higher and middle classes are generally Abyssinians of deep brown or bronze complexion."

Lane clarifies "Abyssianian" to mean from the territories of the Galla people, a Christian ethnic group in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. There is a striking similarity betwen the high cheekbones, V-shaped face and hair of modern Ethiopians and Somalis and the face of the new slave in Lewis's "The Introduction of an Abyssinian Slave" (Compare her with this portrait of the Dutch MP, Ayaan Hirsi Ali - one of the bravest politicians in Europe today, incidently.)

The third ethnic group is represented by the black eunuch harem servant, who is disrobing the new slave, and such black slaves, both male and female, were obtained from modern day Sudan - presumably in raids from Arab tribes, similar to those who are carrying off southern Sudanese into slavery in the 21st century.

It's striking how similar the new slave's clothing is to Lane's description of lower class Egyptian women and his engravings in "Modern Egyptians": her loose, white linen "tob" is already slipped off her shoulders, and her chequered or striped milayeh is held by the eunuch. Even the red borders that Lane mentions are included.

Lane's illustrations depict most of the poorer Egyptian free women appearing barefoot when outdoors, even when fully veiled. The new slave stands barefoot on the marble "durka'ah" of the room where shoes are permitted, and we can assume she has arrived in that condition, as befits her lack of status up to that point. Her new master's leather shoes, on which he even steps on the lowest level of the divan, further emphasises her state of vulnerability.

Looking past her, we see the only veiled woman in the picture, and her eyes are intently watching the bey out of the corner of her eye. No doubt she is veiled because she is not a member of his harem, and is there representing the slave dealer. Lane informs us that purchasers were allowed three days trial of a new slave, and so this initial examination is not simply a post-sale formality. As such, the "Hhareem" is another representation of the prospective owner's choice over whether to take possession of a slave, and the powerlessness that Gerome's "Slave Market" had shown.

The facial expressions of the painting are as varied as the origins of its inhabitants. The new slave's eyes are demurely cast to the floor, as she clutches the tob over her breasts. Both the standing eunuch, and the standing Abyssinian slave girl with the peacock feather fan, have broad smiles - perhaps prompted by the others' reactions? The bey is leaning forward to see his new acquisition, but his three European women are not convinced. From bottom right up in status to top left, they are questioning, pouting, and in the case of the favourite who reclines on the divan level with the bey, positively frowning. Reading Lane's account of the domestic arrangements of a harem, it's clear that many customs were instituted to manage these petty jealousies which can so easily, and accidentally, arise.

When Lewis returned to Britain, some of the praise for his painting was for depicting this scene without an excess of "grossness and sensuality" (that is, eroticism in our terms.) Nevertheless, it remained his most explicit painting, and in 1869 he revisited the scene to paint his "An Intercepted Correspondence", toned-down with the romantic flowers narrative and all those smiling faces.

In creating "An Intercepted Correspondence" from "The Introduction of an Abyssinian Slave", Lewis retained the three unimpressed European women draped over the divan, added another reclining on the marble floor, and introduced two new central characters to replace the new slave: the recipient of the flower message, and another harem woman who bows to her master as she holds out the flowers in one hand, and the offender in the other. The master of the harem has also aged the same twenty years that Lewis had, and he is surrounded by double the number of those expensive European slaves, so perhaps he is a pasha rather than a mere bey.

The body language of the women remains little changed, but now their facial expressions all betray varying degrees of amusement and derision at the expense of their offending sister. And now the pasha leans forward with a stern look, rather than with the anticipation of the new slave's potential from the earlier painting.

When I first saw "An Intercepted Correspondence", I was surprised at the relative light-heartedness of the scene, where even the offending girl looks merely thoughtful and downcast. She doesn't look like someone awaiting possible execution for conspiring or committing adultery with her lover, who has been exposed by the interception of his message in flowers.

I don't believe it's that simple now though.

Back in 1837, Lewis had produced a book illustration with Coke Smyth that showed two harem women (confusingly entitled "Hhareem" also), sat together, hands brushing, one gazing at the face of the other, and with two roses, one fully opened and the other just about to, cast on the floor before them. Maybe they're just friends, but the language of flowers would suggest otherwise: where Mary Montagu had explained the Turkish use of different flowers to form "love letters", in 1844 Charles White had to point out that these messages of love were more often used between women in a harem, rather than from male lovers outside it.

In that light, "An Intercepted Correspondence" may not be a tale of adultery, but of a "crush" or "pash" that would be more at home in a girl's boarding school in the West.

But even as the story of a pash rather than a pasha, it's still offering a window into a very different way of living: one in which a harem isn't just a group of women that a man might have the exclusive use of; it is also largely a world of women, which men are excluded from, and where women can live together and form close relationships, some of which may be as friends and sisters of the same household, and some of which may be more.

Edited Sun 2 Jul 06, 12:55 PM by Tanos

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