Odalisque

The odalisques - from the turkish odalik, waitress - were virgin slaves, and during the Ottoman Empire, they were given to powerful men as concubines: very young girls, beautiful and chaste who went to increase the harems of sheiks, and sometimes - as in a fairy-tale - they could married one. Always associated to erotic and oriental culture, they are figures who tantalise fantasy and becomes protagonists of poetries, novels and art.

Carlo Massimo Franchi, a contemporary artist, often portrays them with extremely intensive closes up: women completely wrapped by their tunics, where the only visible part is the eyes, tantalising fantasy and exhorting the viewer to discover what there is behind, leaving an air of mystery that makes women really intriguing. In the meanwhile, odalisques portrayed on bed, with clothes and attitudes revealing, make clear their nature of concubines, anyway charming, placed on their lavish beds by Arabian Nights.

Salvatore Fiume with his narrations, portrays odalisques (now we mean concubines and waitress), for example, the ones from the Aeneid suite: memorable is the lithography where Aeneas arrives to the Dido's court (during the IV book of Virgil's work), and he is welcomed by her and all the odalisques, ready to entertain all the guests just landed in Carthage.