Everything in this scene—the clothing, architecture, and physical types of the people—suggests that Frederick Arthur Bridgman was presenting a slice of reality witnessed by him on his many trips to North Africa. In actuality, the painting was executed in Bridgman's Paris studio, which even had the lattice window and lounge shown here. Orientalism—the taste for Near Eastern subjects—was strong in the late nineteenth century, especially in the United States, where this painting was exhibited in 1881 and acquired by the noted Brooklyn art collector George I. Seney in 1882.
