For Romans, it's a reasonably well known place that people know by name but many haven't ever been to before. For me, Chiostro del Bramante is one of Rome's hidden gems, a well kept secret that is hidden away in the historic centre of Rome. A former cloister which still bears the mystical hallmarks of its centuries long use, it has since been tastefully adapted into an arts venue. For those who like a good class of wine in an enchanting setting, this place offers ambience in spades.

The Chiostro del Bramante also showcases a program of ever changing exhibitions, and the latest, Orientalists; Incantations and Discoveries in Nineteenth Century Painting, running through to January 22, 2012, too is all about ambience, mystique and exoticism.

Orientalists follows the development of Orientalism in Italy, from its early nineteenth century form of exoticism to its eventual recognition as a fully formed genre of painting; a somewhat charming, mutated mating of Colonialism and eroticism.

This style; equal parts romanticism, historical documentation and an often quite liberal chronicling of forbidden pleasures, ignited the imagination of artists throughout Italy, both those who had never set foot on the foreign soils of the Near East from where inspiration was drawn, as well as those who traveled and painted on location.

This exhibition of eighty or so works, although demarcated into sections such as 'Desert', 'Cities' and 'Encounters' can more simply be divided into two parts; observation and enchantment.

Observational works, depicting the landscapes, towns and people of the Northern African and Middle Eastern countries which formed this offshoot of the Colonial era Grand Tour, whether imagined or actually undertaken, form the basis of about half of this exhibition, and it's easy to see how the new material, themes and locations were so appealing for Italian artists of the nineteenth century. As such, there are some real revelations to be found, not only in the images, with whose themes and subjects we by now are more frequently better acquainted, but rather, with the work of three key artists; Roberto Guastalla, Domenica Morelli and Francesco Hayez, who lack the recognition of many of their fellow countrymen, but are deservedly prominently featured in this exhibition.

Roberto Guastalla, Schiava Negra, Private Collection, Parma

Guastalla's images, many of which were painted on location, or adapted from photographs that he was known to take on his travels, reveal an innate eye for composition, design and color. Fanciulla Di Colore alla Porta (Colored Maid at the Door) is as much an exercise in pattern and color as it is an evocative rendering of a domestic image, aided by the sensationally visual aspects of the setting. Zeibek Davanti alla Porta di un Bazar (Zeibek In Front of a Bazaar Door) continues Guastalla's interest in color, pattern and architecture; here he depicts his subjects, a group of lazy, pottering animals and men in strange, oddly revealing Equestrian dress (with knees exposed), in a bright, luminous way, building the oils in a way that they are left with the sheen of enamel. The motifs of patterned toils, controlled explosions of color, and architectural features combine in a way to make this the kind of image that today's urban hipster would gleefully display in a super modern lounge room. Guastalla's ability to frame and compose his images is timeless; images like these and Un Angolo Dello Studio (A Corner of the Study), this time exploring Arabic text in addition to color and architecture, seem like the kind of images that still transfix us today in a contemporary travel magazines, brimming with exotic appeal and atmosphere.

Domenico Morelli, La Sultana che torna dal bagno, Fondazione Balzan, Milan

Although some of the images occasionally stray into fantasy, as occurs in many of Morelli's images, not unusual, given he drew from inspiration rather than observation, having never left his native Naples for the far flung locations that captured his imagination, they mostly remain plausible, if impressionist images. Arabo in Preghiera (Arab Praying), a watercolor, whose texture is so expertly built up that it adds an urgency to what is otherwise an intimate moment, that renders the image in an earthy, sensual and completely hypnotic way, whereas his La Sultana Che Torna Dal Bagno (Sultan's Wife Returning From Her Bath) is more definitely a flight into erotic fantasy. Against a hazy sky, grounded by a shiny, tiled garden where small finch-like birds are bathing in a pool that bears the stylistic touches of Islamic architecture and design, the Sultan's wife leads a procession of her domestics and other company up a staircase, under brightly colored parasols, all dressed to various levels of modesty. Morelli however, takes some artistic licence, liscentiously giving her a plunging neck line, a knowing glance, and portraying his subject as part fashion plate, part lust object to provide us with an imaginative and evocative example of the Orientalist genre.

This exhibition walks a sometimes fine line between reality and imagination, mystery and conscious desires, and as such, one of the main thematic concerns of the Orientalists is the chronocling of forbidden pleasures. Increasingly, the shift towards intimacy, shifts the settings away from outdoor observation to inner explorations of harems, hamams, and pleasure quarters where desire ruled and odalisques reigned. The fascination and obsession was contagious with artists of the Orientalist movement, with artists from the Southern most Italian region of Puglia up through to the northern Veneto region succumbing to what can only be described as a refined, colonial exoticism.

Francesco Netti, Odalisca, Collezione Pasquale Natuzzi

Francesco Netti in particular, after returning from Turkey, dedicated himself to this internationalized intimacy, and his Odalisca (1884-5) is a triumph of his approach, being both sexually charged and coquettish, muted and decorative. This is a playful, intoxicating exploration of the erotic genre that toys with many of the motifs that define Orientalism. Here, his Odalisque lays amongst abundant tapestries, her milky flesh only barely concealed in a setting that smacks of opulence and indulgence. She lies on the day lounge in the company of a little pink bird, and though she is bejewelled and enthralled in the bird, its hard as a viewer not to draw a parallel between her and the bird, for the way we are equally engrossed in her.

Netti's Odalisque is exhibited in a room full of intimate portraits of the near naked women of the harems, the apex of this source of inspiration. Morelli's images in this second part of the exhibition, dedicated to the odalisques and pleasure quarters, aren't quite as strong as his observational images, nor are they on the same level of Netti's or Francesco Hayez's which dominate the latter part of the exhibition. But both Netti and Hayez's images are of such a strong calibre, that they would be hard to compete with. In particular, Hayez's images play with the same idea of fetishization, of sexualization seen elsewhere in the exhibition, but these are intelligent interpretations, where framing and arrangement, as well as color treatment is so accomplished that they are on par with Guastalla's work. In particular, Odalisca Alla Finestra, is sensational; simplistic and comparatively small in scale, but so commanding in its depiction of an Odalisque on a balcony, standing seductively in front of a billowing, scene stealing curtain.

Francesco Hayez, Un'odalisca alla finestra di un harem, Fondazione Bano, Padova

Elsewhere, the explorations into the hidden world of the pleasure quarters seem whimsical, but on the whole, this is an exhibition not so much interested in the limitations or flaws of colonialism or a world view that may at times no longer seem relevant, but instead in following the rather extraordinary flight of fancy that many Italian artists took in the nineteenth century, resisting as they did, the fiercely domestic nature of the painting scene in favor of seeking out the exotic and the allure of the unknown.

The revelation of artists like Netti, Hayez, and Guastalla, whose works have been borrowed from different collections all around Italy for the exhibition, makes the Orientalists worth a visit, not to mention the opportunity to discover the equally enchanting Chiostro which is playing its own part in helping to shed light on this previously overlooked genre within Italian painting's extensive tradition.

Chiostro del Bramante is located on Via della Pace in Rome's centro storico, a short walk from Piazza Navona. Orientalists is showing through January 22, 2012.