Focus on this artwork and analyze the Composition and subject.
The composition of Renoir's work is quite different from Delacroix's Women of Algiers. While Delacroix arranged his figures across the foreground, Renoir places his in a diagonal with a final indistinct figure at top right. The picture plane is tipped towards the spectator to the extent that the women look like they may slip down to the bottom of the picture. The two black-haired women at the front appear to be in subservient roles attending the blonde headed woman in the centre who is evidently being prepared for a sexual encounter. The woman on the right is holding up a mirror while the one on the left may be applying make-up using a brush. There is nudity and near nudity which Delacroix did not include in his scene.The figure in the top right corner of the picture is apparently greeting a visitor, whose arrival also attracts the attention of the woman on the left. There is a sense that the arrival of the visitor is unexpected or sudden. The woman at the top has her hand up, perhaps in surprise or to delay access while preparations for the encounter continue. One reading of the painting is that it depicts the arrival of a male client in a Paris brothel with an oriental theme.One of the models has been identified as Renoir's lover Lise Tréhot. Tréhot sat for Renoir up to about 1872. The Harem was one of the last paintings for which she modeled for Renoir.
Lise Tréhot right Women of Algiers