Provenance

United States Naval Academy Museum

United States Naval Academy Museum

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This horizontal painting shows a daylit, covered terrace, where two women with pale skin and wearing long dresses lounge and recline along a ledge as a turbaned man with dark brown skin plays a musical instrument. To our left, behind one of the women, the musician's white turban drapes around his neck. His white shirt has wide, salmon-pink cuffs. His head is bent over a stringed instrument with a light yellow rounded body and a long, narrow wooden neck. His features are mostly lost in shadow but his closed lips are dark pink. Behind and framing the musician, a dark green drapery with gold edging cuts across the top left corner of the painting and is drawn back to reveal a bright sea view beyond. Close to us, one woman wears an orange-red dress with gold embroidery and a low-cut transparent blouse that shows her pale skin beneath. She lounges on her back, head near the musician, and body splayed along the ledge out toward our right. Her eyes are half-closed, and her head rests on a large gold pillow with green and pink embroidery over which her long, dark red hair cascades. Her left arm is bent and thrown back behind her head while her right arm hangs limply toward the floor. Her extended legs are bent, and feet with red and gold pointed slippers emerge from the bottom of the dress. Beyond her legs and to our right, the second woman reclines in a gold and cream-white dress with a filmy top and gold jacket. She rests her head in her hand, propped up by a crooked elbow resting on the ledge, while her body extends to our right. She gazes at us with dark eyes. She has dark brown, wavy hair that flows behind her shoulders, and she wears a gold headband with round, coin-like links. Beyond the group of three, another man stands to the far right in the background, in a corner of the terrace patio next to a pillar. Like the other man, he has dark brown skin and wears a turban, a loose white shirt under a yellow vest, and light blue, loose trousers. The back of the terrace opens to a bright and sunny day, the light blue sky scattered with thin white clouds above a vivid blue sea, where three sailboats approach the port. Distant mountains are bathed in light and appear pink, beyond the white roofs of the port or village along the water's edge, to our left.
Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant, The Favorite of the Emir, c. 1879, oil on canvas, Courtesy of the United States Naval Academy Museum, 2010.95.1

The Favorite of the Emir

Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant · c. 1879 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2010.95.1