Landmark exhibit of Orientalist art to open at Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia

Osman Hamdi Bey's 'Young Woman Reading' (oil on canvas, 1880), which is part of the 'Orientalist Paintings: Mirror Or Mirage?' exhibition at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: IAMM

More than 100 paintings of Orientalist art are set to go on display at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (IAMM) in Kuala Lumpur this week, the largest-ever exhibition – outside Europe and the United States – of paintings and artefacts that capture the essence of the Orient in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Highlights of IAMM's Orientalist Paintings: Mirror Or Mirage? exhibition, which runs from June 3 to Oct 15, include renowned works by some of the most celebrated painters of the era, including Jean-Leon Gerome, Eugene Delacroix, John Frederick Lewis and the remarkable but rarely seen Ottoman polymath Osman Hamdi Bey.