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The Italian concept dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) was a popular subject among British painters in the late nineteenth century. Its meaning accorded with the belief among certain artists and critics that art should eschew moralizing subjects and "do nothing" other than pursue beauty. Common among representations of dolce far niente is the objectification of wormen, pictured alone or in groups in languid repose. In Brangwyn's interpretation, four women, suggestive of a harem, surround a fountain under the shade of a magnolia tree. Although the painting's title is in Italian, the depicted location is likely an imagined Orientalist pastiche influenced by the work of the French painter Eugene Delacroix and Brangwyn's extensive travels in southern Europe, North Africa, and Ottoman Turkey in the late 188os and early 1890s.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022