The Harem
Harem scenes in paintings and books were very popular in Delacroix's time. French Orientalist painting took off with Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1798, the year in which Delacroix was born. A further high point followed the French enthusiasm for all things Greek during the Greek revolution in 1821-30, during which time Victor Hugo authored the volume of poems Les Orientales and Delacroix contributed two paintings, The Massacre at Chios (1824) and Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Messolonghi (1826), a forerunner of his most famous painting Liberty Leading the People (1830).
European men made the Harem out to be a kind of plush private bordello; this painting has more than a little of this notion in it. The problem for European artists was that no European could obtain access to a Harem. Their fantasy depictions of it were therefore obviously pure inventions and often hardly believable. (see Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1876 Pool in a Harem, for example) In contrast, Delacroix could rely upon his own eyes, which lends his work a special heft, believability and authority.
Nevertheless this painting reflects anything but reality, but rather presents a mixture of observation and generally accepted European conventions. Other than the black slave, who appears to be leaving the room, the women are conspicuous in their luxurious idleness. In reality, however, the Harem would be teeming with children and all kinds of activities- the women would have been in no way alone and idly awaiting the return of their man. This is even more amazing as Delacroix himself noted in his journal that children were not to be overlooked. The natural and domestic setting thus becomes a bordello, such as would have been easy to find in Paris.
Read more about this topic: The Women Of Algiers