Gérôme, Jean-Léon (1824-1904)
Femme au balcon (Woman at a Balcony)
1887–1888
Oil on canvas, 50.2 × 41.6 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Seen from below as if from street level and posed seductively in a revealing costume, this woman is identifiable as an alma, or courtesan. The setting recalls Cairo, which Gérôme visited for the last time in 1868, some twenty years before he painted the picture. (MET)