19th century West looked outside for its muse and found an eternally giving source in the landscapes, society, and environs of India.
This Orientalist oil painting is a reproduction of American painter Edwin Lord Weeks’ artwork by the same title, artistically recording the mundane yet alluring lifestyle of silk merchants.
The charm of Orientalist paintings lies in the details they capture. Here, one can observe the primary subject, four silk merchants inspecting a richly colored piece of silk, but the real hints of the “exotic” land of India are hidden in the background.
Behind a curtain of silk in the grand wood embellished home, are women adorned in traditional attire. A hookah is placed near the stairs of the Haveli. On the right of the observer, two figures gaze at the market scene from the Jharokha. From the gate below, a woman emerges with her child on her shoulder, another looks at her with a pot on her head and a man walks by with a basket balanced on his head.
Weeks like the Orientalist painters of his time offered the European audience, who were the main connoisseurs of such artworks, a window into the life and ways of a faraway civilization, a promise of traveling miles without having to move an inch!
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