Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Constantinople 1869–70: The Harem

Abstract Polish-born, trained in Germany, with a studio in Rome and a second home in Denmark due to her marriage to sculptor and academician Adolf Jerichau, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1818–81) was a true nineteenth-century cosmopolite. She painted Europe’s elite and counted Princess Alexandra, Hans Christian Andersen, Henrik Ibsen, the Grimm brothers, and Charles Dickens among her well-wishers. She was invited by Queen Victoria to Buckingham Palace, and her portrait of Alexandra remains in the Royal Collection to this day. Her travelogue Brogede Rejsebilleder (Motley Images of Travel;1881) is centered around two journeys to “the Orient,” undertaken in 1869–70 and 1874–75. While these journeys to Constantinople and Smyrna constitute almost half of the travelogue, other chapters describe journeys to Athens, Cairo, St. Petersburg, Capri, and the Alps. The present chapters, translated by David Possen and introduced by Julia Kuehn, are the second part of Jerichau-Baumann’s record of the first of two journeys to Constantinople, in 1869–70. The painter vividly describes a visit to a Constantinople harem. Jerichau-Baumann’s temporary friendship with the young Princess Nazlı Hanım would lead to a number of paintings by Jerichau-Baumann now considered emblematic of and unique in (female) Orientalist art. Nazlı became a well-known literary salon hostess and arts supporter in Istanbul, Paris, Cairo, and Tunis, as well as an important figure in the Ottoman Empire’s political reform, modernization, and cross-cultural endeavors.