Massage at the Hammam, by French painter Edouard Debat-Ponsan (1847-1913) in 1883, was inspired by the artist’s trip to Istanbul two years earlier. His work is generally academic in style and in this picture he pays rigorous attention to the details of the anatomy of the reclining woman receiving the massage in the bathhouse, as well as to the decorative designs on the background wall. This rigor serves to create a scene of heightened realism.
Edouard Debat-Ponsan’s Massage at the Hammam (or Le Massage. Scène de hammam in his native French) is in the Museum of Augustines in Toulouse, France.