Combat Between Giaour and the Pasha

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Like the poem on which it is based, Lord Byron’s The Giaour (1813), this print exhibits Europeans’ contemporary fascination with the Middle East, a trend known as Orientalism that often depended on stereotypes of violence and sexuality. In the poem, a Venetian giaour (a Turkish term for a non-Muslim) falls in love with Leila, a member of a Turkish harem controlled by the pasha (master), Hassan. When Hassan discovers this affair, he kills Leila. In the scene depicted here, the giaour fights the pasha to avenge his lover.

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