拍品专文
Pasini spent from 1867 to 1869 in Constantinople where he painted a group of four pictures of odalisques in garden settings in the countryside of Pera, off the coast of the Golden Horn.
In December 1869, Pasini wrote to his friend, C. F. Biscara about his impressions of Constantinople, describing beautiful people dressed in the most rich and colourful costumes that resembled a bunch of flowers, composed by an artist. He had seen groups of women forming the most unexpected harmonies of colours and this made him think of flowers talking and living, to a background of the azure waters of the Bosphorus, with its banks flanked with gems of villas. It reminded him of gems because these villas were painted in all colours in which rays of sunlight rendered them like precious gems. Pasini said that if he could compose this painting with such details, he would find infinite material to generate each picture, saying : 'the ultimate palette meets the dignity of a philosopher or the pride of a King' (Cardoso, op. cit., p. 86, note 11).
In December 1869, Pasini wrote to his friend, C. F. Biscara about his impressions of Constantinople, describing beautiful people dressed in the most rich and colourful costumes that resembled a bunch of flowers, composed by an artist. He had seen groups of women forming the most unexpected harmonies of colours and this made him think of flowers talking and living, to a background of the azure waters of the Bosphorus, with its banks flanked with gems of villas. It reminded him of gems because these villas were painted in all colours in which rays of sunlight rendered them like precious gems. Pasini said that if he could compose this painting with such details, he would find infinite material to generate each picture, saying : 'the ultimate palette meets the dignity of a philosopher or the pride of a King' (Cardoso, op. cit., p. 86, note 11).