The Alhambra at the Crossroads of History: Eastern and Western Visions in the Long Nineteenth Century

A growing flow of visitors in the 19th century turned the Alhambra into a touristic destination and a major trope of Orientalism, created by Western authors and artists from François—René de Chateaubriand to Owen Jones and from Washington Irving to Jean—Léon Gérôme. Yet behind this Western infatuation lie scores of ‘Oriental’ observers of the monument, as revealed by its visitors’ book, kept since 1829.
This book uses this untapped source to analyse the perceptions of the Alhambra by multip...