Lord was deeply fascinated by the tales that came out of the Far East and she often portrayed her interpretations of characters from these tales in a studied fashion. Interestingly, while “Badoura” is likely Badr ul-Badour, the princess with whom the main character falls in love with in The Story of Aladdin, that famous tale was not from any original Arabic text. It was in fact written in the manner of the stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights in the 18th century by Frenchman Antoine Galland, in an interpretation of a story told by Hanna Diyab.
Either way, Lord’s Badoura is beautiful, and beautifully adorned, fully inhabiting the Arabic translation of her name:“the full moon of moon,” a metaphor for female beauty in Arabic literature.