NARRATOR: 
Auguste Renoir was incredibly skilled at beguiling viewers’ senses with rich color, shimmering light, and thoughtful composition. Curator Mary Morton: 

MORTON: 
One of the extraordinary things about the painting is how much pleasure and what a challenge Renoir is meeting in describing all of the textures of these fantastic textiles -  the velvet, the brocade, the transparent, diaphanous bodice, the feathers, the gold, metal, the slippers, and then of course her incredible expression alongside the positioning of her legs and the arching of her foot, captivate the viewer.

NARRATOR: 
The painting sets out to make us think we’re inside a harem – a strictly private, female space in a North African home at the time. But in fact, this is Renoir’s own studio. 

LAILA LALAMI: 
I'm not at all surprised to learn that the model for this painting was, in fact, a woman in Paris – My name is Laila Lalami and I am a novelist and essayist based in Los Angeles.

Renoir, like any other Frenchman, would not have had access to this intimate space in the home of an Algerian family. But what is clear is that there is this desire/to violate a barrier. It is a woman that is being portrayed almost as an offering.  

MARY MORTON: 
He has rented, probably, a fantastic costume, vaguely North African. And then he's also embellished his studio space with some decorative arts.  
 
LAILA LALAMI: 
It is impossible to look at this picture from 1870 and not think about the context in which it was painted - at this point, France has invaded Algeria and is now in control of the country.  

We like to think of ourselves as more modern and more enlightened creatures, but all we have to do is look at how this way of looking at women continues today, because of this fantasy, this view of Arab and Amazigh and Muslim women as other.  

MARY MORTON: 
So what does one do with pictures like this, which served to advance the stereotype of the colonized? I think it's crucial that we don’t hide it away. We need to use objects like this, to help us access critically the past and history.