One of the rich natives was under some obligations to me and by way of testifying his gratitude invited me to his house. On account of my being a foreigner he thought he might allow his wife to be at the party and thus contribute to my entertainment. She was extremely fair and her hands uncommonly delicate. On my admiring them, she held them out to me. We had ever little to say to each other, and to make up for this silence, I kissed her hands which, as she was perplexed to know what she should do afterwards to interest me, she did not offer to withdraw. On my side I dared not let them go. I am at a loss to conjecture how this might have terminated if refreshments had not been brought.
-Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, 1803, Vivant Denon
Besides being Napoleon’s premier savant in his invasion of Egypt, Vivant Denon previously had been a pornographer of the French Revolution, during which he painted 27 views of unusual sexual congress based on recently discovered erotic Pompeiian frescoes and several portraits of a certain Mme. Mosion, nude from the waist up and “in positions of abandon from every body angle, all executed with the artist’s most playful stroke”, as a contemporary put it. His biography is subtitled “Hedonist and Scholar”. I knew none of this when I was reading his Travels to glean information on desert caravans.