Dance of the Almeh

Dance of the Almeh is an 1863 genre painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. It depicts the performance of an Almah belly dancer accompanied by musicians. Stylistically it reflects the fashionable Orientalism of the era, as well as the realism of many of Gérôme's works. Gérôme displayed the painting at the Salon of 1864 in Paris, where it generated a degree of controversy amongst those who felt it was "immoral". Today it is in the collection of the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio.