Egyptian Women in the Eyes of Western Travelers and Orientalists

The Egyptian Woman through the Eyes of Western Travelers and Orientalists

the book one Thousand and One Nights” with its Scheherazades full of love, passion and sex had a big impact on the West. It left a lasting impression of the exotic East and its beautiful women especially after the first translation by Antoine Galland in 1704 into French

european writers didn’t form a new image of the East until the mid 18th century and it was centered on Egypt. this was after direct contact with the environment travel and the discovery of the cities, people and women. These experiences were documented by travelers and painted by artists for historical and commercial purposes to get into egyptian life of that time. egypt was a big deal in French romantic literature, attracting big writers artists and travelers like Savary, Volney, Gérard de Nerval, Marmier flaubert Maxime Du camp and Jean-Jacques Ampère. They wrote about Egyptian women and their customs compared to Western women.

Savary and Volney’s views

Two 18th century books that shaped Western views of egypt and its people especially Napoleon before his expedition in 1798 were Letters on Egypt” by Claude Étienne Savary (1785-1786) and Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte by Constantin François Volney (1787). These books were very popular translated into German and English and published in multiple French editions.

Savary gave a lively description of egyptian women in their natural environment different from the fantasy of “One Thousand and One Nights”: “Peasant women go to wash clothes and fetch water. They bathe with their jars and clothes on the shore, rub their bodies with Nile mud before playing in the waves. Their braids float on their shoulders, their sun-kissed skin and most are slender and beautiful.”

On the other hand volney mocked Savary’s description with this: “No egyptian woman’s legs can be mentioned as slender and tanned from bathing unless one suffers referring to Savary from a great sense of deprivation.” this raises questions about the authenticity of travelers’ accounts and their subjectivity as pointed out by french historian Jean-marie carré in “French Travelers and Writers in Egypt”.

Egyptian Women in Description de l’egypte

The french expedition scholars (1798-1801) cleared many ambiguities with the studies in “Description de l’Égypte” which was the first comprehensive visual and written description of Egyptian society and women and the earlier traveler fantasies. French scholar Jacques-François de Chabrol wrote the first scientific study “Études sur les mœurs et les coutumes des Égyptiens modernes” which described upper class women as surrounded by maids and living a sedentary life and therefore becoming obese lower class women were depicted as working hard and physically strong working equally with their husbands in the fields with a different physicality and spirit.

french scholar Jean-françois champollion noted the body tattoos of Egyptian women during his 1828 visit and wrote about the process and cost in his letters. He documented these in his letters about the beauty practices of egyptian women

The Harem and Baths

Women in their private quarters or harems was a popular theme among travelers and artists. The restricted access to these areas led to imaginative and sometimes erotic depictions. The social class of the men determined the freedom of the women, higher class women were more confined. Western interest in domestic life and female activities was big in the 18th and 19th century but depictions of motherhood was rare, instead they focused on daily activities and the harem.

artists also depicted women in communal baths, showing intimate moments with their servants. These scenes like the one painted by French artist Frédéric Bazille in "The Bath" (1870) showed women in moments of personal care and beauty rituals.

Weddings and Rights in Ancient Egypt

French scholar Édouard Gompel in "Description of Cairo and the Citadel" said that baths was important for women, where they spent hours of pleasure, conducted personal affairs and arranged marriages. English historian Edward Lane described women's habits in the bath, minimal clothing and simple entertainment was their leisure.

Artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme and Édouard Debat-Ponsan showed different skin tones of Egyptian women, Circassian women with fair skin and African women with darker skin. This added to the Western understanding of Egyptian society.

Entertainment and Celebrations

Women participated in religious celebrations, the departure and arrival of the "Mahmal" (Kaaba cover) during the pilgrimage from Egypt. They were part of the welcoming crowds, as seen in artworks by Ludwig Deutsch and Carl Haag. But depictions of women in mosques was rare, maybe because of the distance of the artists, as suggested by eugène Fromentin

The Ghawazi

european fantasies about the East lingered and artists painted dancers and courtesans half naked or naked, continuing the tradition from the Renaissance. The "ghawazi" (dancers) was different from "awalim" (singers) but the terms became synonymous in the 19th century. Jean-François Champollion in his letters described his encounter with women selling fruits along the Nile, showing everyday life with Egyptian women.

These historical accounts and artistic representations of Egyptian women by Western travelers and orientalists gives us a complex view of their lives, challenging and adding to our understanding of Egyptian culture and society