Pasha and Bayadère

It belongs to a group of pictures where Fenton staged scenes inspired by the Middle East exoticism and also by the artistic movement of orientalism.

[1][3] This scene was staged in Fenton's studio in London and the photographer himself appears as the pasha of the title, a leading Turkish official, while his friend, the landscape painter Frank Dillon, stars as a musician who plays a string instrument at the left.

The dancer stands still, dressed in a Turkish inspired exotic outfit, including female pants, with her arms held up high, as she had been caught in the middle of a dance.

[4][3] The interior shows a drape at the background, and is decorated with several exotic objects, including, at the left, a drum called "darabukke" and a tambourine, which had been allegedly taken by Dillon to England after a travel to Egypt, shortly before the picture was taken.

"[1][5] The photograph was the subject of a book by Gordon Baldwin, Roger Fenton: Pasha and Bayadere, published by the Getty Museum Studies on Art (1996).