Since her dramatic execution by firing squad in 1917, Mata Hari has become an object of fascination in art, pop culture, and academia.^[1] She led a scandalous life that contained all the components of a Hollywood spy thriller: aliases, femmes fatales, sex, and espionage. There has been continual debate in the academic community about the espionage accusations; was she was actually a German spy or simply a victim of misogyny? However intriguing, these questions have come to overshadow the more understated, but equally fascinating, aspects of her life — such as the careful crafting of her self-image. Her persona was shaped using a variety of methods, one of which was photographic portraiture. At first glance, Mata Hari’s portraits appear to be nothing more than a woman dressed in baubles and exposing a little skin. However, these images were created with the public in mind, using much deeper appeals than pure eroticism. Mata Hari utilized society’s fascination with the Orient and the role of the male gaze in this trend to bolster her self-constructed image as an exotic sex symbol.

The Multiple Lives of Mata Hari

Mata Hari, 1910
Wikimedia Commons

In order to understand the image Mata Hari attempted to convey through her photographs, one must first understand her biography. She came into the world as Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. Born to a bourgeois family in the small Dutch town of Leeuwarden, she lived a mostly quiet life until marrying Captain MacLeod at age eighteen. Being an officer’s wife required her to move from one exotic locale to another, going from Java to Medan. During this period, she spent most of her time in the house reading, acquiring a rudimentary understanding of Hinduism and the Malayan language. Captain MacLeod retired in 1902, and relocated his tiny family back to the Netherlands. In this claustrophobic environment, the couple’s already tumultuous marriage finally dissolved. The Captain disowned Margaretha, leaving her without any form of income, and with that she set out for Paris with no money and a limited French vocabulary. She was quoted as saying: “I thought that all women who ran away from their husbands went to Paris.”^[2] When she first arrived, she modeled for a painter as a means of income and served as a circus equestrian until she found a more efficient means of living. Exotic dancing was in high demand in a society enamored with the recently explored East. After taking a wealthy lover who introduced her to various members of high society, she debuted an arresting, erotic dance act at a prestigious singer’s salon.^[3] Thus began the notorious and fascinating career of Mata Hari.

To suit her ambitions, Margaretha invented a melodramatic origin story that was continuously changed and embellished throughout her career.^[4] She claimed to be born in Southern India to an English officer’s family, becoming a temple dancer following the death of her mother. Margaretha maintained that the dances she learned in the Temple were a form of Shiva worship, justifying her overt sensuality to the wealthy oriental enthusiasts of Paris. Through these fake biographies, she declared herself an authority on the East and exotic dance, though she had little experience with the art beyond a performance given at an Indonesian officers’ club.^[5] It cast her as the heroine in a myth of her own making, creating a shroud of mystery, curiosity, and sensuality around her persona. Though this was not an unusual practice for dancers and courtesans of the time, no other backstory charmed the Western world more than Mata Hari’s. By many accounts she was a poor dancer, whose real power resided in her ability to charm, seduce, and convey a sexualized image by manipulating society’s obsession with the Orient.^[6] Her portraiture reinforces this mythos, in the hopes that she would gain the attention she always craved.

La belle époque, Courtesans, and the Orient Obsession

The city Margaretha fled to after her marriage crumbled was the perfect place to seek out the freedom and attention she so desired. Early twentieth century Paris — sometimes called la belle époque — was a place of consumption, bohemia, and the rich academic artist. After two centuries of unrest in France, it was a time of excitement and exploration, a chance for the French people to finally live comfortably and enjoy the new consumerist sentiments fostered by the bourgeois.^[7] With this came an interest in entertainment, including the theater, dances, burlesques, and other forms of performative art. In a time where female sexuality was slowly being pushed into the spotlight, striptease and nude dancing was becoming increasingly popular with courtesans as a way to seduce wealthy clients. High society viewed it as an artful way to exhibit the female form without accusations of vulgarity, though these dances certainly had their erotic undertones.^[8]

Much like the rest of the world, the belle époque Paris was fascinated by the Orient and incorporated it into their own cultural fabric.

All courtesans of the belle époque had their various gimmicks and theatrical methods of attracting a wealthy clientele. In addition to these, many courtesans utilized the relatively new technology of photography for self-promotional purposes. Unlike the paintings of the last few centuries, photographs were easily replicated and able to be circulated among the masses. Provocative photographs not only titillated the viewer, but served as a form of advertising as well. According to feminist Maria-Elena Buszek, suggestive portraits of performers “meant not only a place in the bourgeois collectors’ photo albums, but a headline in the papers,” much like the paparazzi photographs of celebrities today.^[9] Photography was a medium of such reproductive powers that some provocative portraits would be printed as postcards for public consumption. Some of these postcards — particularly in the case of Mata Hari — would show the woman in a state of undress, usually in the middle of performing a dance. Such blatant displays of female sexuality were still considered taboo, but paradoxically, these images of beautiful women undressing for the world were presented in such an artistic manner that their exhibitionist behavior was made acceptable.

Contemporary fashion may have also contributed to this surge of interest in public nudity and the striptease. Designer Paul Poiret was creating new, loose-fitting clothing that released women from the confines of their corsets.^[10] Inspired by the unstructured costumes of the East, these new fashions allowed the true human form to be more readily visible and for women to move more freely than ever before. These revealing clothes facilitated the acting and dancing community thriving in Paris, a group that was inherently tied to the demimonde.^[11] It was also evidence of the endless Western hunger for consuming Oriental goods. It was not uncommon during this period for women to dress in ethnic garb as a way of showing culture and wealth. Wearing exotic clothing and dressing in the guise of an Oriental woman — who had become a stereotype of her own that will be discussed later — was a way for Western women to break cultural boundaries while still retaining the privilege of being white.^[12] Mata Hari participated in this throughout her career, something that will be seen later in the analysis of her photographs.

Much like the rest of the world, the belle époque Paris was fascinated by the Orient and incorporated it into their own cultural fabric. However, their admiration of exoticism was much like that of a crowd watching a freak show. The version of Oriental culture that was understood in the public mind was often misguided, racist, and carried an inherent sense of superiority. The West saw the Orient as primitive, sexual, and passionate, in contrast to themselves, who represented restraint, rationality, and strict moral values.^[13]

The West asserted its dominance over the East in many ways besides pure colonialism. Painting a hyper-sexual portrait of harem life and objectifying Oriental women allowed the West to wield cultural power, establishing superiority over the East. Ottoman women that populated harems were often objectified by Western writers observing life in the Seraglio. Oriental women were stereotyped as being good tempered, charming, and naturally sexy. The Western view of the Oriental woman’s sexuality was paradoxical: she was both the abused innocent and the beautiful seductress, the virgin and the femme fatale.^[14] It gave her no choice but to be the victim of sexual despotism, or to be the master of her own sexuality who would be viewed as immoral through a Western lens. This simplified view of Oriental culture came to shape the attitudes of Western generations for years to come, particularly in the belle époque.

The sexualization of Oriental women and the pornographic image of harem life was not helped by salacious accounts that had been available to the public for centuries. Accounts in this vein were circulated everywhere, painting the harem as a sultan’s sexual playground and the Oriental woman as the plaything for their masters. The British diplomat Paul Rycaut wrote of the Turkish harems:

The western knight consumes himself with combats, watching, and penance to acquire the love of one fair Damsel; here [Turkey] an army of Virgins make it the only study and business of their life to obtain the single nod of invitation to the Bed of their great Master.^[15]

She was a woman who had a love of the romanticized Orient herself, and who knew how to play on these tropes that Oriental enthusiasts sought and valued.

This simple, but telling description of harem life perfectly shows the kind of image Western society was receiving from their “ethnographers” and travelers on the Eastern front. It is a description that appeals directly to male desires, creating the perfect background for sexual fantasy. Roderick Cavaliero states that “[Westerners] viewed the harem as voyeurs view pornography.”^[16] He couldn’t have been more correct in both the figurative and literal sense. The harem and the Oriental harem beauty became popular subject matter for contemporary pornography. The Lustful Turk — a popular erotic novel published less than a hundred years before la belle époque — cites all of these myths about the hyper-sexualized harem environment and the submissive Oriental woman. This is only one example of the many pornographic materials based in and/or on the aforementioned stereotypes.^[17]

So what does all of this have to do with Mata Hari? Though she was not necessarily respected by high society, Mata Hari was a celebrity and one of the most expensive courtesans in belle époque Paris.^[18] She did not get to this position on luck alone. She was a woman who had a love of the romanticized Orient herself, and who knew how to play on these tropes that Oriental enthusiasts sought and valued. She knew that her society valued the Oriental woman as an object of sexual desire, and armed with this awareness, manipulated those cultural connotations for her own gain. Unlike many other courtesans during this period, charges of indecency were never brought against her because she created an Orientalist image to shroud the erotic nature of the dances she performed. These performances, accompanied by her “Oriental” charm, attracted clients to her. Because of this, she was allowed to continue propagating herself through photographic portraits, all of which display her awareness of society’s relationship with the Orient and the role of the male gaze within that dynamic.

Mata Hari as Harem Dancer

A portrait of Mata Hari taken in 1906 by an unknown photographer shows her dancing during a performance in an exaggerated, revealing Oriental costume. In this photo, pose and garb come together to create a tastefully erotic image that manipulates both the male gaze and the belle époque obsession with the exotic. Captured mid-step in her dance, she leans to one side, arm bent towards her face, foot stepping out as though she is about to spin herself around. Her other arm is extended, holding out the translucent veil that cascades down from her jeweled brassiere. Bedecked in jewels and an elaborate headdress, Mata Hari establishes herself as a performer who specifically appeals to those enthralled by the distant Orient. Through this sheer fabric, the rounded hint of her bare rear is revealed. This creates a diaphanous curtain between her body and the audience, a kind of “tease” to the male viewer. One could make parallels between the target viewer of this photograph and the Western men who encountered dancing girls in their Orient travels. In this environment, Eastern women are comfortable performing within their cultural norms. They dance in a traditional style — which many travel narratives have described with words like “heaving,” “oiled,” and “writhing,” — that Europeans found sexually exciting, because Western cultural norms forbade such blatant displays of sexuality. This passive, yet inviting exhibition of the female form both terrified and aroused Western men.^[19] Much like the portrayals of Oriental women in travel narratives and pornography throughout the century, Mata Hari presents herself in this photograph as an object of sexual desire, while still carrying a facade of passivity.

This photograph reveals Mata Hari’s constant craving for attention and consciousness of the male gaze. Exposing herself in such a manner shows a subtle awareness of her own attractiveness and sexuality, something she used to propagate her name, but it also shows an awareness of the male gaze in relation to Oriental stereotypes. This photograph is very much an early form of the soon-to-come pin-up, in that it uses the contrast of display and suggestion to promote the self-conscious objectification of the female subject.^[20] This awareness of the male gaze and provocative display of sexuality is made socially acceptable by its theatrical exoticness. Bedecked in jewels and an elaborate headdress, Mata Hari establishes herself as a performer who specifically appeals to those enthralled by the distant Orient. Her public nudity became acceptable in this foreign, theatrical environment much in the way nudity was considered acceptable when placed in a classical setting.^[21]

Underlying this nod to Orientalist tradition is a visual appeal to men who would sexually objectify her, shown in her provocative costuming. The diaphanous veil that falls from her brassiere suggests the form of her rear, without revealing it in its entirety. It is this possibility that one might catch a glimpse of her nude skin beneath the fabric that is meant to appeal to the male gaze, while still maintaining the overarching sense of mystery associated with the Orient. The costuming itself is important to the erotic image, as it distinguishes her from other women and identifies her as an exotic. This is a quality often considered appealing, and the costuming in this case is — as dance analyst Stavros Stavrou Karayanni puts it — “fetishistic” and essential to the process of sexual desire.^[22]

A Harem Beauty, 1899
(Oil on canvas, 109.9 x 95.3 cm)
BY Francisco Masriera y Manovens
PRIVATE COLLECTION
PHOTO: Christie’s

Regardless of its arousing effect, the veil that covers her body while still revealing what lies underneath is a common costume in Western depictions of the East — particularly in harem imagery. This is something she must have been well aware of. Under this same umbrella, she would have had knowledge of harems, Salome, and the Oriental dancing woman.^[23] Many paintings — such as Francisco Masriera y Manovens’ A Harem Beauty — depict harem girls lounging about in elaborate costumes made of sheer material. These sensual images had become a norm for early twentieth century Parisians.

Had Mata Hari taken this image dressed in a contemporary Western style and performed without the protection of an Eastern persona, the public would have had a poor reaction to her erotic spectacles. She would have risked being arrested for public indecency. By conjuring up associations with fine art, she wove herself into a tapestry of previously established motifs, thus making her performances socially acceptable and relevant to contemporary artistic discussion. Mata Hari artfully navigated these loopholes in the public’s sense of morality to perpetuate her sexualized, exotic persona while still maintaining the fickle attentions of Parisian high society.

Mata Hari as Odalisque

Another photograph taken in 1906 of the famous dancer recalls in part the previous photo examined, but is much more apparently posed and less kinetic in nature. With the exception of an anklet, she is nude from the waist down. As opposed to the veiled rear the viewer is presented with in the first photograph, this perspective allows the viewer to see every curve of her silhouette. She is again adorned in a studded brassiere, extravagant amounts of jewelry, and a headdress, adding an exotic theatricality to the image.

Laying down on the ground and facing the camera, Mata Hari stares dispassionately at the viewer. Her gaze is straightforward, but not quite confrontational — just as the stereotypical harem beauty is described. Once again there is a passive acknowledgement of the viewer, a toleration of the viewer’s gaze, without fully welcoming them to touch the beauty laid out before them. Her relaxed pose amid the fallen fabric and flowers mirror her gaze in the sense that it is neither modest nor tempting. In this way, it pulls characteristics from the harem sexual fantasy — the idea that desirable women are locked away from the world and saved exclusively for the touch of one man. She is posing here as forbidden fruit, ripe and ready for the taking, yet unable to be plucked. Her body is existing in a way that allows the viewer to enjoy the beauty of the shamelessly displayed, sexualized female form, much like the Oriental women vividly described dancing in travel narratives. Maxime du Camp, a traveler in the East, recounted the dance of an Oriental woman in this manner:

She is elegant… her markedly slitted eyes seem like silver globes inset with black diamonds, and they are veiled and languid like those of an amorous cat… She held out her two long arms, black and glistening, shaking them from shoulder to wrist with an imperceptible quivering… Sometimes she bent completely over backward, supporting herself on her hands in the position of the dancing Salome…^[24]

This description highlights particular aspects of the woman that could immediately be identified as foreign, such as the darkness of her skin. More sexual qualities of her are pointed out as well, such as likening her dance to that of Salome’s and describing her eyes as “veiled and languid like an amorous cat.” It is a sensual, vibrant description that pins the dancing Oriental woman as an object of sexual desire, while the male viewer watches without being able to access her physically. There are heavy voyeuristic undertones to travel narratives describing native female dancers, an undertone that blatantly appears in this portrait of Mata Hari. Not only is she connecting herself to Oriental dancers abroad, she is also placing herself under the male voyeurs’ watchful, but ever-reaching gaze.

Returning to the related subject of costuming, Mata Hari again plays with the exposed and concealed parts of her own body in this photograph. Though she reclines on the fabric and flower petals mostly nude, her breasts remain concealed by a bedecked brassiere. The cache-seins as it was called, was a device of her own invention that she used as a part of her elaborate costuming, a vital aspect in creating the exotic atmosphere her performances required. Throughout the duration of her career, Mata Hari, one of the most famous courtesans in belle époque Paris, never revealed her breasts.^[25] There have been speculations on why she never uncovered her bosom, but even without a practical explanation, this serves an artistic purpose in this portrait. By laying on the ground exposed from the waist down, she is exhibiting both her vulnerability and her sexual potential. This again harkens back to the paradoxical view of the harem woman as both the innocent and the seductress. However, by wearing the cache-seins to cover her breasts, she is also maintaining a level of mystery, a desire to see what lies underneath her brassiere. This knowledge of the Western attitudes towards the East and the male gaze’s role in those attitudes helped her create an exotic, sexualized image that would last for decades after she stopped performing.

Odalisque with Slave, 1842
(Oil on canvas, 76 x 105 cm)
BY Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres
The Walters Art Museum
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE YORCK PROJECT:
10.000 MEISTERWERKE DER MALEREI

As touched on before, the Western interest in the exotic lands of the East had given rise to particular motifs in Orientalist art. One of these motifs was the classic reclining nude placed into a harem setting. Mata Hari’s photograph harkens back to the reclining odalisques often pictured in high art of the time, such as Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Odalisque with Slave. The painting shows a nude woman of the harem languishing among exotic objects, such as the hookah and dulcimer. Though in Mata Hari’s portrait there are no such objects, the flowers and fabric paired with the costuming bring to mind the odalisque tropes of the far East. This languishing about in the nude was a common perception of harem life, something that was very much misunderstood by Westerners. The West propagated an image of the harem that became synonymous with a brothel. The term came to connote sexual despotism, the idea that a man had free reign over his own personal whores.^[26] The odalisque stereotype is another element of the Western male sexual fantasy, a place that Mata Hari attempts to fill in this photograph. Though Ingres’ Odalisque with Slave was painted almost a century before Mata Hari’s photograph was taken, the interest in the reclining harem beauty was still relevant to her contemporaries and had arguably grown even more fervent since.^[27]

The harem dancer and odalisque were both stereotypes rendered in Western depictions of the East that became a fascination for Western society. Not only were these stereotypes a way to access the exotic as a means of escapism, they were also objects of sexual fantasy. This was something Mata Hari was no doubt conscious of when crafting these photographs of herself for the public’s viewing pleasure. Had these photographs not placed themselves into a long line of harem imagery in art, it could have been considered distasteful and landed Mata Hari in prison like some of her stripping counterparts.^[28] Instead, by appealing to an audience ever-hungry for the exotic and eroticism, she became one the most successful courtesans in la belle époque Paris and gained the attention she had always desired.