Oct 12, 2019
Leopold Carl Müller (1834-1892) - An almée’s admirers
Oil on canvas. Painted in 1882.
30.4 x 49.75 inches, 77.1 x 126.3 cm. Estimate: US$800,000-1,200,000.
Sold Sotheby’s, New York, 23 Oct 2008 for US$1,650,500.
An almeh, refers to a learned woman, high in status and educated in the musical and literary arts; European travellers mistakenly applied this term to any female entertainer. By 1850, it came to be associated most closely with the ghawazee, or Egyptian dancing girls who were often also prostitutes
