Shulamite

'Shulamite' (c. 1856) depicts the beloved woman of the Song of Solomon — 'I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys' — one of the most celebrated erotic and mystical texts of the Hebrew Bible. The subject allowed Cabanel to explore an exotic female figure with both biblical authority and oriental coloring: the Shulamite is described as dark-skinned, coming from beyond the borders of Israel, and her sensuous beauty was celebrated in terms that academic painting could exploit with theological cover. The work was made around 1856, a formative period for Cabanel before the enormous success of his Birth of Venus (1863). The Orientalist dimension of the subject — dark skin, lush vegetation, suggested Middle Eastern setting — anticipates the broader fashion for Orientalist subjects that would dominate French academic painting through the following two decades.

Cabanel renders the Shulamite with warm dark tones in skin and hair, following the text's description of her darkness as characteristic rather than incidental. The figure's pose — reclined or semi-reclined in a garden setting — combines the academic nude tradition with suggestions of an Eastern garden. Lush vegetation provides textural contrast to the figure's smooth skin.