Baumann was a rare artist. Not only was she a woman but she was also very open in her portrayal of the exotic. The nudity beneath the sheer, silk, the exotic jewelry, the reddening sky all infuse the piece with a sensuous quality which would have had a strong influence on an 1870 audience. Unlike many male painters of her day might have done, Baumann depicts the Fellah woman in a way which allows her to command respect and admiration from the viewer. She is relaxed and secure in our gaze but her attention is not on us but in enjoying her slumbering child. With a Polish-German background, Baumann had a wider horizon than most Danish artists and she traveled to Greece, Turkey and Egypt for inspiration... (http://vangoyourself.com/paintings/egyptian-fellah-woman-with-her-baby/) In 1869-70 Elisabeth traveled extensively in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle-East, and again in 1874-75 accompanied by her son Harald. She was able to gain access to the harems of the Ottoman Empire and as a result was able to paint scenes of harem life from personal observation, in contrast to most artists of the time, whose work on this popular subject was entirely derived from the imagination or other artists in the same position as themselves. Nevertheless, as Roberts points out, she had to curb her desire to paint the women of the harems as Europeans liked to imagine them because they insisted on being painted in the latest Paris fashions. In 1869, she was admitted into the harem of Mustafa Fazil Paşa. She was able to gain entry because of her royal patronage in Denmark and brought with her a letter of introduction from Princess Alexandra of Denmark by then the Princess of Wales.... But the fact that Mustafa was a liberal in favour of a Western style constitutional government and was a vocal proponent of modernization played an important part in her being granted entry. She was entranced by Mustafa Paşa's daughter Nazlı and wrote home to her husband and children, 'Yesterday I fell in love with a beautiful Turkish Princess'. Her work from this period is sometimes decorative and frequently sentimental but with a fine sense of color and lighting. The sensualism in some of these paintings was still considered taboo in some parts of Europe and the Danish art world tried to keep these works out of sight. Until recently, her paintings were kept in museum storerooms in Denmark. The erotic quality in many of her husband's statues may have helped her to disregard this provincialism in spite of the obvious social risks to a woman at the time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Jerichau-Baumann]