Odalisques and Mini Houses

I have been reading an absolutely fantastic book lately about harems in Turkey. Its called "Harem : Life Behind the Veil" and its great for anyone who loves some good history, especially history concerning persnickety women. What is even better is the book is full of beautiful color prints of paintings of harem life, and black and white photographs of women of that time. One painter really resonated with me, and so I geeked out and tried to find all his works.

His name is John Frederick Lewis and he has an interesting wiki bio. What I especially like is that Lewis actually lived in the Middle East, and his depictions are of daily life are accurate. This is unusual for most of the painters of the time, who instead would paint idealized or completely fictitious scenes of "oriental" life.

On a different note, have you heard of Tumbleweed Houses? How cute are these? They are one room pre-fabs....