Lure of the East

Tate Britain's Lure of the East exhibition, which I reviewed last year (CLICK) has reopened at the Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates. According to Sylvia Smith for BBC News, the locals are lapping it up, never having seen British Orientalist art before, and they've lost some of the Islamic architecture depicted in the 85 oil paintings, sketches and water colours on loan. Naked harem girls being pampered by bare-breasted Nubian slaves are seen as an amusing Western fantasy! Aw, shame! That's another of my illusions up the spout.