Gallery 804 is all about the lure of the exotic. Its 15 paintings by French artists generally date from the middle decades of the 19th century and include cityscapes of Seville, Beirut, and Jerusalem, portraits of turban-clad men, a scene showing the interior of a mosque, and a highly seductive portrayal of Salome, whose disheveled hair and clothing suggest that she’s come not from dancing for Herod but from a tryst in bed. The introductory signage helpfully notes that interest in depicting foreign scenes was stirred by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, Greece's war for independence from Ottoman rule, and the French conquest of Algeria. While much has been made of the stereotyping and falsification associated with Orientalism, the paintings exhibited here seem pretty realistic to me, and respectful of their subjects.

The work that most intrigues me is a small (approximately 14 inches wide and 17 inches high) depiction of the Great Pyramid of Giza, painted in 1830 by Adrien Dauzats, a painter I’d never heard of before. The pyramid is depicted from an unusual perspective, at some elevation above the base and near the point where two sides come together. The work is as geometrical as its subject: the side of the pyramid facing the viewer is a truncated triangle, while the side leading away, cast in shadow, is another triangle but reads as a truncated parallelogram. The angle emphasizes the structure's great height; the pyramid’s apex is near the top of the frame. A couple of men in long white robes provide a sense of the enormity of the building blocks. I’ve seen lots of images of the pyramids, mostly photographs, but the originality of Dauzat’s composition really grabs me.