>>18070967 (OP)
Genuinely cool composition and technique. It almost looks like a Japanese woodblock print, but there's some very soft, fine brush work on the face.
>>18070967 (OP)
This is back when pearls were real and insanely rare. Assuming this isn't just a costume, you're looking at a couple Ferraris worth of clothes.
>>18071029
looks like the average kurdish woman
What is it with muslim rulers and black eunuchs protecting their wives?
It's not just the ottomans and persians (turkish rulers) who did this. 1001 arabian nights begins with a sultan being cucked by a black slave, his brother gets cucked by a black slave and a bunch of women get fucked by a bunch of black slaves or one black slaves and a bunch of black slaves in the beginning of the story.
>>18071069
I'm not sure, but I know black slaves (among others) were commonly used as house-maids and servants for affluent families. I've yet to read up in detail on Qajar era art. It seems like a very underappreciated part of history.
>>18071017 >>18071066 >>18071082
I remember some people supposed that the monobrowed mannish ogres from the photographs of the Qajar sultan's harem were men in drag doing a prank or something, but it's clear from these that those were just the standards of the times. The other paintings were much kinder to them though, emphasizing their femininity.
>>18071132
Yeah, beauty in early to middle Qajar Iran was nongendered, as in it did not differ between men and women. A man with a light moustache and no beard was seen as beautiful in the same way as a woman with a light moustache or no moustache.
It was a very interesting beauty standard that I honestly wish survived to this day out of curiosity.
>>18071070
Adultery is a common enough topic in myths and tales but 1001 Nights has, as far as I know, the oldest depictions of what we could recognize as modern NTR, clearly erotic fantasies of high status ladies debasing themselves with interracial, lowborn scumbags. The story with the leper in particular stood out to me, it could be one of those Japanese doujinshi.
>>18071166
Officially part of "the Tale of the Ensorceled Prince". Burton's translation is a bit dated but I prefer it for the bawdiness.
>Then she rose and donned her fairest dress and perfumed her person and slung my sword over her shoulder; and, opening the gates of the palace, went her ill way. I rose and followed her as she left the palace and she threaded the streets until she came to the city gate, where she spoke words I understood not, and the padlocks dropped of themselves as if broken and the gate-leaves opened. She went forth (and I after her without her noticing aught) till she came at last to the outlying mounds and a reed fence built about a round-roofed hut of mud-bricks. >As she entered the door, I climbed upon the roof which commanded a view of the interior. And lo! my fair cousin had gone in to a hideous negro slave with his upper lip like the cover of a pot, and his lower like an open pot; lips which might sweep up sand from the gravel-floor of the cot. He was to boot a leper and a paralytic, lying upon a strew of sugar-cane trash and wrapped, in an old blanket and the foulest rags and tatters. >She kissed the earth before him, and he raised his head so as to see her and said, "Woe to thee! what call hadst thou to stay away all this time? Here have been with me sundry of the black brethren, who drank their wine and each had his young lady, and I was not content to drink because of thine absence." Then she, "O my lord, my heart's love and coolth of my eyes, knowest thou not that I am married to my cousin whose very look I loathe, and hate myself when in his company? And did not I fear for thy sake, I would not let a single sun arise before making his city a ruined heap wherein raven should croak and howlet hoot, and jackal and wolf harbour and loot; nay I had removed its very stones to the back side of Mount Kรกf."
>>18071188 >Rejoined the slave, "Thou liest, damn thee! Now I swear an oath by the valour and honour of blackamoor men (and deem not our manliness to be the poor manliness of white men), from to-day forth if thou stay away till this hour, I will not keep company with thee nor will I glue my body with thy body and strum and belly-bump. Dost play fast and loose with us, thou cracked pot, that we may satisfy thy dirty lusts? stinkard! bitch! vilest of the vile whites!" >When I heard his words, and saw with my own eyes what passed between these two wretches, the world waxed dark before my face and my soul knew not in what place it was. But my wife humbly stood up weeping before and wheedling the slave, and saying, "O my beloved, and very fruit of my heart, there is none left to cheer me but thy dear self; and, if thou cast me off who shall take me in, O my beloved, O light of my eyes?" And she ceased not weeping and abasing herself to him until he deigned be reconciled with her. >Then was she right glad and stood up and doffed her clothes, even to her petticoat-trousers, and said, "O my master what hast thou here for thy handmaiden to eat?" "Uncover the basin," he grumbled, "and thou shalt find at the bottom the broiled bones of some rats we dined on; pick at them, and then go to that slop-pot where thou shalt find some leavings of beer which thou mayest drink." So she ate and drank and washed her hands, and went and lay down by the side of the slave, upon the cane-trash and, stripping herself stark naked, she crept in with him under his foul coverlet and his rags and tatters. When I saw my wife, my cousin, the daughter of my uncle, do this deed, I clean lost my wits, and climbing down from the roof, I entered and took the sword which she had with her and drew it, determined to cut down the twain.
>>18071192
Burton's commentary is quite amusing too
>There is a terrible truth in this satire, which reminds us of the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier laid, ord et infรขme of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.) We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting him but, when she does, adieu husband and children, honour and religion, life and "soul." Moreover Nature (human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair and foul, dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be like the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half-truth when he backed himself, with an hour's start, against the handsomest man in England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the Italians say, un bel brutto), was the highest recommendation in the eyes of very beautiful women.
>>18071223
the tale from the Heptameron is more like an incel screed.
>THERE was a gentleman in Dauphinรฉ named the Seigneur De Riant, of the household of King Francis I., and one of the best-looking and best-bred men of his day. He paid his court for a long time to a widow, whom he loved and respected so much, that, for fear of losing her good graces, he durst not ask of her that which he longed for with the utmost passion. As he was conscious of being a handsome man and well worthy of being loved, he firmly believed what she often swore to himโnamely, that she loved him above all men in the world; and that if she were constrained to do anything for any one, it would be for him alone, who was the most accomplished gentleman she had ever known. She begged he would content himself with this, and not attempt to exceed the limits of decorous friendship, assuring him, that upon the least symptom of his craving anything more, she should be lost to him forever. [...] >But on coming to a charming pleached arbor, in his impatience to behold his adored, he darted into it abruptly, and what did he see then but the lady stretched on the grass, in the arms of a groom, as ugly, nasty, and disreputable, as De Riant was all the reverse. I will not pretend to describe his indignation at so unexpected a spectacle; I will only say it was so great, that in an instant it extinguished his long-cherished flame. "Much good may it do you, madam," cried he, as full of resentment as he had been of love. "I am now cured and delivered of the continual anguish which your fancied virtue had caused me;" and without another word he turned on his heel and went back faster than he had come. The poor woman had not a word to say for herself, and could only put her hands over her face, that as she could not cover her shame she might at least cover her eyes, and not see him who saw her but too plainly, notwithstanding her long dissimulation.
>>18071238
And the in-story commentary >"If we were not pledged to tell the truth, I could not believe that a woman of such station could have forgotten herself so much as to quit so handsome a gentleman for a nasty groom." >"If you knew, madam," replied Hircan, "the difference there is between a gentleman who has all his life worn harness and followed the army, and a servant who has led a sedentary life and been well fed, you would excuse this poor widow." >"I have heard," said Simontault, "that there are women who are very glad to have apostles to preach up their virtue and their chastity; they treat them with the most gracious kindness and familiarity, and assure them that they would grant them what they sue for, did conscience and honor permit it. When the poor dupes are in company they talk of these excellent ladies, and swear they would put their hands in the fire if they are not women of virtue, relying on the proof they think they have personally obtained for their assertion. But the ladies thus praised by these simple gentlemen show themselves in their real colors to those who are like themselves, and choose for the objects on whom they bestow their favors men who have not the boldness to tell tales, and of so abject a condition, that even, were they to blab, they would not be believed." >"I have heard the same thing said before by extravagantly jealous folk," said Longarine. "But surely this is what may be called painting a chimera; for though such a thing may have happened to one wretched woman, is it thence to be inferred that all women do the same thing?" >"I give you my oath," said Saffredent, "that although I have only spoken upon hearsay, what I have told you is, nevertheless, the strict truth. But if I chose to tell you what I could relate of women from my own knowledge, you would make more signs of the cross than they do in consecrating a church." >"Since you have so bad an opinion of women, they ought to banish you from their society."
>>18071017
Note the enraged Mammy groid in the background. LOL!
The unibrow meme is very real too. Clearly, a maiden has been deflowered by the scoundrel on the right, only to be caught by the neighbors, family and Aunt Jemimah. I'm pretty sure this is just an allegory for Mohammed's conception found in the Quran.
>>18071066
No matter how you depict them, they always look like apes.
It must genuinely suck to be a black and know that the only time you'll ever be depicted in civilized art is as a slave and only a slave, and no matter what other groups you put them around, they always stick out like a sore thumb, which makes it all the more degrading.
>>18071247
So where is my upper class gf? >>18071188 >a castrated giga nigger slave had more game than me
This is bullshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit I HATE THIS WORLD