The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity by Fernando Mazzocca, issued on 20 June 2010.

Private collection, Milan.

The unpublished painting is documented by Giulio Carotti in the List of Hayez's works published as an appendix to the Memorie of the artist, announcing it in 1880 as “Odalisque (head; studio), of the Presid. Clerici di Lecco” (F. Hayez. My memories, with appendix edited by G. Carotti, Milan 1890. p. 283; news taken up in The complete work of Francesco Hayez, edited by S. Coradeschi, Milan 1871 p. 109 n. 387 and by F. Mazzocca, Francesco Hayez, Catalog raisonné, Milan 1994 p. 374 n. 428, but in both without indication of the technique and dimensions).The singularity of the work lies in the fact that it represents the latest version of a theme dear to the painter, that of the Odalisque, represented half-figure and with a turban. The first is the one from 1839 conserved in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, the second is from 1860 (in a private collection), while there are various solutions otherwise set, such as the large Odalisque at the window of a Harem by 1838, the great Reclining Odalisque of 1839, the Odalisque near a slave of 1864, the Reading Odalisque and the Odalisque in sleep, both from 1867.As in the other cases, the figure is once again taken from life, based on model posed. While the term "studio", to which it was indicated in the List, underlines a characteristic common to Hayez's paintings from the 1980s, which often appear as unfinished. Here the artist, in a work that must have had a private character and which was intended for his friend Giuseppe Clerici, still demonstrates all his skill in foreshortening precisely in the beautiful detail of the hand, like his resources as a colorist in the splendid tonality of the green used for the turban.

Milan June 20, 2010
Prof. Fernando Mazzocca