I am doing a research about representation and misrepresentation of Middle East and North Africa women in 1800s. Almost all the material I found is produced by males and I am curious to found a little more about the female gaze. My reaserch is focused more on photography and art, but I would like some interesting contribute from female authors. How these women looked at MENA 1800s women? I have already seen paintings by Henriette Browne and Josephine Jerichau-Baumann and I have read some travel journal entries written by Ida Pfeiffer and Ida Hahn-Hahn.
Are you interested in Western European visitors to the Ottoman court? If you're looking at Henriette Brown or Mary Walker among your artists, they could be a good parallel to her! There is some fascinating ethnography from women visitors to the imperial harem, and some fun scholarly analysis of it.
Grace Ellison is definitely someone to look at, especially since she helped Ottoman women travel to western Europe and publish some of their own writing as well. There's Mary Herbert and Emilia Hornby, who explicitly framed their descriptions of the court and harem through Arabian Nights. Isabella Romer was neither so exoticizing nor so pleased with her visit.
If you're interested in secondary scholarship as well, let me know. :) Except!
Mary Roberts, "Contest Terrains: Women Orientalists and the Colonial Harem" is exactly on topic for you, and is available on academia.edu.