The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 14, 2025
Harem #14
2009
(Moroccan, b. 1956)
Overall: 101.6 x 76.2 cm (40 x 30 in.)
© Lalla Essaydi
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
The photographer says, "In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as traditionalist, as liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite viewers to resist stereotypes."Description
Lalla Essaydi examines the role of Muslim women by applying layers of Arabic calligraphy by hand with henna on the faces and feet of the two young women whose camouflaged dress mimics the colorful wall tiles in an elaborate Moroccan house belonging to her family. Rather than representing the harem as the euphoric anxiety-free place of the Western imagination, Essaydi is portraying its historical reality as, she says, "a dangerous frontier where sacred law and pleasure collide." Young women who disobeyed were confined in this beautiful house—accompanied only by servants—for a month in silence.- 2009–?Lalla Essaydi, New York, NY?–2012(Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)2012–The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Islamic art rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 3, 2012-December 9, 2013).
- {{cite web|title=Harem #14|url=false|author=Lalla Essaydi|year=2009|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.14