There has been some fairly specific criticism of the latest exhibition at the British Museum. "Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influenced western art" has irked some reviewers, not with the title’s meagre use of capitalisation, but with the disappointingly small number of harem paintings on display. It seems that British art critics are as eager to savour Oriental flesh as their forebears supposedly were.
As a curator of the exhibition, I was surprised to see no mention of the absence of Eastern Christians to go with the minimal display of hot harem women. The explanation for both no-shows is their invisibility at the time of painting.
