Marie Corelli's fame flourished at the height of European colonialism and "Orientalism," when motifs, images, stories, and outright thievery brought Europeans into lands few Westerners had ever seen. Artists rejoiced in this new source of cool stuff to paint and compose and write about. In the 1870s epic operas like Verdi's "Aida" and Saint-Saens' "Samson and Delilah" thrilled the opera world with lavish re-creations of ancient times. In literature authors like Bulwer-Lytton wrote the immensely influential "Last Days of Pompeii," published in 1834, and the French author Flaubert penned "Salammbo," (1861) a lurid tale of decadence and savagery set in ancient Carthage before the Roman imperial conquest. Corelli absorbed every one of these productions and added plenty of hot erotic and violent scenes for her wide-eyed readers.
This light-footed dancer, a male paired with a female dancer, are some of the entertainment at the Snake-Priestess' party, where Corelli rather anachronistically has them dance a waltz.
Ink and watercolor on sketchbook page (rather hard to see), 4 1/2" x 6 1/2", 1976.
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