The Dance of the Bee

The painter, who participated in the revolts against the Bourbons in 1848, fled to Egypt where he worked for the Khedivé Said Pasha. Returning to Naples in 1862, Marinelli recomposed inventive images from his notebooks and memories of his travels in the East. The work depicts the dancers of the sultan’s harem who, pretending to have been bitten by a bee, writhe voluptuously until their clothes slip completely off their bodies.