Delacroix depicted the Oriental despot as cruel, powerful, and sexually deviant

Evidence

Vathek is a typical Oriental despot, “pleasing and majestic,” but also malevolent and powerful, possessing magical powers, including the ability to strike someone dead with his angry stare. The towering “quasi-Babel” tower that Vathek constructs in Samarah follows him wherever he goes. In the original French edition, it is clear where he gets his magical powers—“se coi[t] initié dans les mystères astrologiques”—Vathek is a practitioner of dark magic. … Vathek’s monstrosity is also predicated on the character’s multiple sexualities, which includes a large harem of beautiful women: The fifth palace, denominated “The Retreat of Joy, or the Dangerous,” was frequented by troops of young females beautiful as the houris, and no less seducing, who never failed to receive with caresses all whom the Caliph allowed to approach them; for he was by no means disposed to be jealous, as his own women were secluded within the palace he inhabited himself. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 507 (#expands, via linked claim)

A minor artistic fashion celebrated the image of the oriental potentate. The image of the oriental despot who ruled over men and had his way with women, yet ruled wisely to the benefit of all, articulated well the spirit of absolutist rule—and helped to ingratiate playwrights, artists, and composers with their sovereign. … Here the ruler is inspecting some young women that have been presented to him at his order. The biblical content of the work, if any, is as subservient as its oriental detail to the idea of portraying a male fantasy of unbridled sexual power. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 184 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Like so many Orientalists who came after him, Anquetil-Duperron was fiercely anti-imperialist. In the introduction to another work, Le Despotisme considéré dans les trois états où il passe pour être, la Turquie, la Perse et l’Hindoustan, he expressed his fear that the concept of Oriental despotism had been summoned up by certain Western thinkers in order to justify the oppressive rule of Europeans over Asia. In many respects, Anquetil-Duperron antipated the main tenets of Said’s Orientalism, though Said, who discusses him, chooses not to mention this. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 223 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Oriental despot’s monstrosity fuses political power, dark magic, and deviant sexuality — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 507; Depraved Arab villains replaced noble savages in Romantic Orientalism — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 380; Orientalist depictions eroticized the torture and death of Eastern women (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• The Oriental despot’s monstrosity fuses political power, dark magic, and deviant sexuality #expands (0.92) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 507
• The oriental despot trope flattered absolutist rulers and their sexual fantasies #corroborates (0.82) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 184
• Depraved Arab villains replaced noble savages in Romantic Orientalism #expands (0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 380
• The concept of Oriental despotism was devised to justify European empire #expands (0.80) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 223
• Xerxes was racialized, sexualized, and dehumanized through orientalist exoticism #corroborates (0.78) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 438
• Delacroix’s Sardanapalus visualized the Oriental despot myth before he visited the East #expands (0.75)
• Orientalist scholarship justified colonization by depicting Muslim men as innately abusive #expands (0.74)
• Orientalist depictions eroticized the torture and death of Eastern women #qualifies (0.72)
• The Muslim in Gothic horror is damned for sexual sin in an Oriental setting #expands (0.72)
• Gothic Muslim villains transferred feminine evil onto their female victims #expands (0.72)
• The Oriental-despotism frame legitimized Western empire as a civilizing burden. #expands (0.72)
• The Arabian Nights imagery signals Eastern sexual degeneracy as a moral corruption #corroborates (0.70) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 662
• Oriental villains shaped the Muslim monsters of Gothic horror #expands (0.70)