Concepts like "West" and "East" may give the impression that these things exist as separate entities, the reality is more nuanced. In Iberia, western and oriental cultures have merged.

The eight centuries of Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal (711-1492) ensured that in the 1800s oriental blood still flowed in their veins. Andalusia was still uncharted territory for most Europeans, but not for long. In the decades that followed the Romantics like Victor Hugo (Les Orientales, 1829) and Washington Irving (Tales of the Alhambra, 1832) told of the lost glory of the Moorish culture and its relics that appeal to the imagination.

Sculptors also fell under the spell of this oriental part of Europe. Spain is for many travellers a first step towards the Orient Overseas.