The Orient is a world populated by blood thirsty tyrants, beguiling odalisques, women of the harem and all sorts of ghosts... at least this is the popular image that was presented. This vision spread through Europe with the publication of the Tales of A Thousand and One Nights (1704-1717) and lives on in numerous editions, adaptations and derivatives.

The Orient, home of hedonistic morality, was a channel for the European imagination. It was an imaginary world where luxury, sensual pleasure and sensuality meet. In this respect Orientalism was a product of the escapism that was part of urbanised, industrialised Western society.