Arabes d'Oran (Arabs of Oran)

This etching by the famous Romantic painter Delacroix represents one of the many approaches used in the 19th century for “documenting” the peoples and places of France’s expanding colonial empire. The French military conquest of Algeria, begun in 1830 and largely completed by mid-century, opened the way for French and European travelers and settlers seeking new experiences and economic opportunities in this major French overseas colony. The visual arts in this period both reflected and inflected Western imperialist attitudes towards indigenous populations. Delacroix’s etching casts an exoticizing gaze upon the inhabitants of Algeria, depicting them not as they were, but as Westerners imagined them to be.