The Turkish Bath,

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). A summation of the theme of female voluptuousness, attractive to Ingres throughout his life, The Turkish Bath, was painted in 1862, in the circular format of earlier masters.

The most erotic of all his works, created at the end of his life, this harem scene combines the figure of the nude with an oriental theme. Taking as his inspiration the letters of Lady Montague, who recounts a visit to a women's bath in Istanbul in the early eighteenth century, Ingres has borrowed figures from some of his previous paintings for this composition full of arabesques.

It was Prince Napoleon who commissioned this harem scene around 1848. The painting was delivered in 1859, but returned soon afterwards because it had shocked the empress. The painter continued to rework his picture until 1863, even after he had dated it 1862. It was only finally revealed to the wider public in 1905, on the occasion of the Ingres retrospective at the Salon d'Automne, and here it excited the most avant-garde painters such as Picasso. The Turkish Bath was the masterpiece of Ingres' later years, as audacious in its subject as it was in its style. The painting can be admired in the Louvre, Paris.