In July of 1798 Napoleon marched into Egypt with an army. He defeated the Turks at the battle of the Pyramids, stayed for a few weeks and then was driven out by the British. In the small amount of time that he was there he managed to change everything.
Following him came first a trickle and then a torrent of Westerners into the Near and Middle East. The artists and writers who were inspired by what they saw became known as the Orientalists. They travelled through Turkey, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Arabia and North Africa. With time they have changed the Western perception of the East and influenced generations of artists.
In the Western and Oriental imagination, water pipes appear as artistic artefacts. The Orientalist painters definitely had a taste for representing the Narghile. Here is a selection of works with Hookahs featured in them.
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