odalisque

plural odalisques · alternative odalisk

1. historicalA female slave in a harem, especially one in the Ottoman seraglio.

   The Sector is borne in a padded Waggon, like some mechanickal Odalisque.

   1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 30, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 296

   3 more examples

   When the young Mauretanians were his guests in the little houses before the town gates, and he was of a good humour, it would come about that he displayed his odalisques as others would their jewels.

   1947 [1939], Ernst Jünger, translated by Stuart Hood, On the Marble Cliffs, New Directions, translation of Auf den Marmorklippen (in German), →LCCN, →OCLC, page 12

   They grew fat, but successfully resisted the enticing odalisques with whom they were confronted.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 96

   Though I could see the titan odalisques and their garden and knew them to be no more than dream-stuff recalled, I could not escape from their fascination and the memory of the dream.

   1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 72

2. artAn erotic painting of a woman, usually nude, reclining in a luxurious or exotic setting.

   Three years later, she added three more odalisques to her collection. Among the works she purchased in 1937 was an ink study that gave her insight into one stage in the evolution of the 1928 painting.

   2016 May 19, K. Porter Aichele, Modern Art on Display: The Legacies of Six Collectors, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 153

3. A desirable or sexually attractive woman.