Debra Hyde also has a Flickr set called “La Nuit Thibetaine”, a mid-20th century, presumably French set of photographs from a magazine that bear a striking resemblance to early scenes from The Story of O.
Why it is called “The Tibetan nights” is unclear. I imagine people who live in Tibet dress warmer at night.
From Gloria Brame, who is practically doing my job for me.
Date and origin unknown, sadly. Note the Orientalist artifacts: Persian rugs, anklets, turban, arm bracelets, the servant-mistress relationship indicated by their positions, the direct sightlines. I’m curious where the black woman came from and how she ended up in a photographer’s studio somewhere in Europe.
You could see it as a take on Manet’s Olympia, though in this case the black woman’s sexuality is not completely erased.
The phrase that kept running through my mind when I watched The Notorious Bettie Page was a line from William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”, part of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”: The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
