John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children, 1897
“Even Mr. Sargent’s skill had not succeeded in making attractive these over-civilized Orientals (Jews).” - reviewer for Spectator
“The children are Jewish to a quaint orientalism, faces to peep out of the lattice or the curtains of closed harems or palanquin.” - Henry James
I’ll let you make your own judgments on these rather tantalizing xenophobic commentaries on this beautiful painting.
AUGH.
LOL at the racism of that period thinking that Ashkenazim either (a) are or (b) resemble “Orientals”. (The same geniuses - like, educated scientists - decided that Finnish people must be “Mongoloids”, aka CHINESE, who had magically transported to Northern Europe beside the Arctic circle and missed all of the space in between, because they have almond-shaped, up-tilted eyes that basically don’t resemble Asian eyes in any respect.)