Rudolph Ernst

Introducing Austrian artist Rudolph Ernst to the French public in 1898, the art critic Léon Roger-Milès wrote that nothing the artist touched “remained innocent of beauty, whether it was a painting, a piece of music, or a ceramic” (Caroline Juler, Najd Collection of Orientalist Paintings, London, 1991, p. 74).  Ernst studied at the Vienna Academy in 1869 under Eisenmenger and Feuerbach and following a brief sojourn to Italy in 1874, he settled in Paris in 1876 and began to show regularly at the Autumn Salon.  His earliest contributions to the Salon were comprised of portraits and genre scenes; however, “from 1885 his compositions were almost entirely Orientalist, with Moroccan, Turkish or Hispano-Moorish backgrounds.  His favourite themes were Nubian guards, mosque interiors, chess players, smokers of narghiles or chibouks, slave girls being caressed by masters, harem women doing embroidery or being decked out in finery” (Lynne Thorton, The Orientalists Painter-Travelers, 1828-1908, Paris, 1983, p. 224).  Through his Orientalist works, Ernst achieved international fame, winning a bronze medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889 and the Autumn Salon of 1900. 

Traveling to Spain, Morocco and Turkey, Ernst was captivated by the rich visual culture he discovered and the khans, souks, and bazaars of the region allowed easy access to the Arab world; craftspeople were eager to open their shops and stalls to Western trade. Ernst collected hundreds of objects, arranging them in his studio, where they became models for those displayed in works like Adorning the Harem. In the present work, Ernst carefully describes the intricate interior decorations of ceramics, patterned tiles, rich fabrics, and furniture while accurately portraying the physiognomy, costumes, and culture of the odalisque and her slave.  Here a slave holds a beaded and jeweled three-strand necklace as the odalisque stands passively before a mirror, already donning large gold earrings and an impressive necklace.  Tales of the exceptional quality and quantity of the jewelry worn by the women of the harem were widespread.  In her travels East, English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describes the exquisite necklaces decorating an odalisque: “…Round her neck she wore three chains which reached her knees: one of large pearls, at the bottom of which hung a finely colored emerald as big as a turkey egg; another consisting of two hundred emeralds joined closely…every one as large as a half-crown piece…” (as quoted in Alev Lytle Croutier, Harem: The World Behind the Veil, 1989, p. 71).  Ernst undoubtedly appreciated the importance of such material objects as both enhancing the beauty the women they adorn, as well as communicating vast wealth and prosperity, adding to the mystery and exoticism of a culture distinctly different than his own.