Lot Essay
This composition exists in five autograph versions including the present one, four of which are in Liotard's favourite medium of pastel, R. Loche and M. Roethlisberger, op. cit., nos. 50-3, illustrated. One pastel is in the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, another in the Stiftung Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur and a third version, unrecorded, is in a Swiss private collection and was exhibited, ex-catalogue, in 1978 in the Zurich Kunsthaus. The painted version is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. The prime version is probably that in the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, which differs from the others in the closer relationship of the two figures and the inclusion of paving stones in the floor. Characteristically Liotard made small alterations to each version: in the present drawing the handling of pastel is more precise than in the Geneva one. The lettering and design of the gold coins that hang around the woman's neck, and the intricate floral design on her crimson dress, are more fully described in this pastel in comparison with the more generalized treatment in the Geneva pastel.
The Kansas City painting, the Winterthur and Swiss privately owned pastels are very close in composition to this version. The Swiss pastel is, however, the closest to the present one: their sizes are almost identical, and the compositions differ only in very small details. The colours of these two versions are, however, slightly different: the colours of the present one are brighter, the white heightening of the other is more pronounced. The composition is, according to Loche and Roethlisberger, based on a lost drawing which Liotard made in Constantinople in 1742, and all were made more or less at the same moment, probably soon after Liotard's return to Europe. As with La Belle Liseuse (lot 149), the success of the composition is reflected in the number of versions that exist.
Liotard arrived in Rome from Paris in 1736, and during the first year of his stay he, as his son relates, met in a café William, Lord Ponsonby, later 2nd Earl of Bessborough (1704-1793). Ponsonby proposed that Liotard should accompany him and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), who was later to become First Lord of the Admiralty, on an expedition to Constantinople. Their purpose in taking Liotard with them was to commission from the artist a series of drawings of the costumes of the inhabitants of the lands en route, and of the different places that had played an important role in history. Sandwich may have intended to have Liotard's drawings engraved as illustrations for a book about his journey, A voyage performed by the late Earl of Sandwich, round the Mediterranean in the years 1738 and 1739, written by himself, London, 1807. The book, whose erudition suggests that it was largely not the work of Sandwich, was published posthumously without any of Liotard's illustrations. On 3 April 1738 Liotard, Ponsonby and Sandwich boarded the Clifton in Naples. After a trip via the islands of Paros, Samos, Chios and Smyrna, where Liotard drew women in local costumes, the group reached Constantinople in August 1742. The influence of the two Englishmen ensured that Liotard was quickly taken up by the small European mercantile community at Pera and Galata, quarters on the European side of Constantinople, near the Golden Horn. From then on, and with the help of the English merchant Levett, most of the European worthies in Constantinople, and even the Grand Vizier, asked Liotard to execute their portraits.
Turkish costumes were very fashionable in the first part of the 18th Century from the time when Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed Efendi, the first Ottoman ambassador to France in 1720, gave a book on Turkish costumes to Louis XV. On Liotard's return to Europe in 1742, he brought back with him a number of Turkish clothes, in which he later used to dress his sitters. His desire to capitalize on his Constantinople experience is reflected in his self-portraits in Turkish costume (Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., nos. 72-4, illustrated) and also in the manner he signed his pastels Le peintre turque. Liotard's interest in costume was already apparent in the drawings made in Rome and it was this that probably persuaded Sandwich to take him to Turkey.
The woman in the present pastel although dressed à la turque, must have been a European women - Greek, Jewish or Armenian - living in Turkey; Liotard would not have had access to Muslim women. She is shown, with her young servant, in front of the kurna, the washbasin, in the hottest part of the bath, the calidarium. The small platforms on each side of the kurna were used as seats, and around them runs a gutter to evacuate the water pouring from the basin. The servant is carrying a tray with a two-sided ivory comb and a tin box of henna used by her mistress to colour the tips of her fingers. Both figures are wearing clogs, or takunya, to protect their feet from the water on the floor.
The fact that the costume the woman is wearing in the present pastel is probably too elaborate to be worn for a visit to the bath and in any case too hot for the calidarium suggests that the scene actually depicted is a pre-nuptial ceremony (N. Avcioglu, Peripatetics of Style: The Architecture of Istanbul through the Eyes of the British Travellers, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1995). But it seems likely that Liotard rather than actually reproducing part of the wedding ceremony, probably organized a setting and asked his models to stand in a customary pose, wearing their best clothes, the wedding attire.
It was a tradition for every bride to visit the bath and have a party there just before the wedding day. For this occasion the bride would dye the tips of her hands and feet and her hair with henna. After this she would go to relax in the cool frigidarium, or sogukluk and smoke tobacco in a pipe, or shubuk, as a recreation. The last stage was the wedding ceremony. According to a letter written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman court in 1717, wealthy women who could not afford diamonds usually wore embroidred clothes, often with gold threads (P. Johnstone, Turkish Embroidery, London, 1985, p. 14). The woman is wearing five layers of clothes, first a white fur waist-coat embroidered with gold thread, with a blue striped kaftan underneath. Below the kaftan is a crimson dress, or entari, embroidered with flowers, and beneath a Bursa silk muslim blouse. She also wears a billowing embroidered silk shalvar. Round her neck is a string of gold coins: coins with the first line of the Koran on one side and the Sultan's tughra, his official monogram, on the reverse. It was a custom to wear jewellery made up of silver and gold coins. Around her wrist she wears a traditional Trabzon isi, a filigree gold bracelet named after the city on the Black Sea. Around her waist is an embroidered scarf, or murassa, usually tied by the bride's father during the wedding ceremony. Around her neck is a çevre, a square piece of embroidered cloth. Her head-dress is adorned with hanging beads resembling fringed and braided hair. The servant, probably a Circassian slave, wears a much simpler silk attire.
The present pastel was probably bought by John Hawkins, who travelled in the Levant for trade. It is probably no coincidence that the two pastels by Liotard that seem to have been owned by him were both of Turkish subjects: the other one, A Woman in Turkish Costume playing a Tambourine (Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 40, illustrated), was also part of Mrs. John Heywood Johnstone's sale in 1925, is now in a Swiss private collection. John Hawkins collected pictures and sculptures and was a Fellow of the Royal Society and High Sheriff of Sussex in 1826. He commissioned Henry Herman to design his house, Bignor Park in Sussex, which was completed in 1826. A drawing of it by Constable is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. On his death in 1841, his son John Heywood Hawkins, M.P. for Newport, expanded his father's collection, acquiring numerous prints and drawings, details of which are mentioned under Lugt 1471. Part of the collection, but not the Liotard pastels was sold at Sotheby's between 29 April and 9 May 1850. At Hawkins' death in 1877, the remainder of the drawings collection passed, with the estate, to his nephew John Heywood Johnstone, M.P. for Horsham. Mrs. Heywood Johnstone died in 1924 and the pastel was subsequently sold at Christie's, 20 February 1925, lot 44. The pastel was bought by Mrs. Grace Hill, her executor, presumably on behalf of Robert Beart Lucas, son-in-law of Mrs. Heywood Johnstone, who is recorded as having brought the pastel into Christie's in 1937. He then presumably sold the drawing to a dealer who brought it to Switzerland, where it was bought by the father of the present owner. Loche and Roethlisberger confuse the provenance of the present pastel and the Winterthur one: the latter was not in Heywood Johnstone's collection.
The Kansas City painting, the Winterthur and Swiss privately owned pastels are very close in composition to this version. The Swiss pastel is, however, the closest to the present one: their sizes are almost identical, and the compositions differ only in very small details. The colours of these two versions are, however, slightly different: the colours of the present one are brighter, the white heightening of the other is more pronounced. The composition is, according to Loche and Roethlisberger, based on a lost drawing which Liotard made in Constantinople in 1742, and all were made more or less at the same moment, probably soon after Liotard's return to Europe. As with La Belle Liseuse (lot 149), the success of the composition is reflected in the number of versions that exist.
Liotard arrived in Rome from Paris in 1736, and during the first year of his stay he, as his son relates, met in a café William, Lord Ponsonby, later 2nd Earl of Bessborough (1704-1793). Ponsonby proposed that Liotard should accompany him and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), who was later to become First Lord of the Admiralty, on an expedition to Constantinople. Their purpose in taking Liotard with them was to commission from the artist a series of drawings of the costumes of the inhabitants of the lands en route, and of the different places that had played an important role in history. Sandwich may have intended to have Liotard's drawings engraved as illustrations for a book about his journey, A voyage performed by the late Earl of Sandwich, round the Mediterranean in the years 1738 and 1739, written by himself, London, 1807. The book, whose erudition suggests that it was largely not the work of Sandwich, was published posthumously without any of Liotard's illustrations. On 3 April 1738 Liotard, Ponsonby and Sandwich boarded the Clifton in Naples. After a trip via the islands of Paros, Samos, Chios and Smyrna, where Liotard drew women in local costumes, the group reached Constantinople in August 1742. The influence of the two Englishmen ensured that Liotard was quickly taken up by the small European mercantile community at Pera and Galata, quarters on the European side of Constantinople, near the Golden Horn. From then on, and with the help of the English merchant Levett, most of the European worthies in Constantinople, and even the Grand Vizier, asked Liotard to execute their portraits.
Turkish costumes were very fashionable in the first part of the 18th Century from the time when Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed Efendi, the first Ottoman ambassador to France in 1720, gave a book on Turkish costumes to Louis XV. On Liotard's return to Europe in 1742, he brought back with him a number of Turkish clothes, in which he later used to dress his sitters. His desire to capitalize on his Constantinople experience is reflected in his self-portraits in Turkish costume (Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., nos. 72-4, illustrated) and also in the manner he signed his pastels Le peintre turque. Liotard's interest in costume was already apparent in the drawings made in Rome and it was this that probably persuaded Sandwich to take him to Turkey.
The woman in the present pastel although dressed à la turque, must have been a European women - Greek, Jewish or Armenian - living in Turkey; Liotard would not have had access to Muslim women. She is shown, with her young servant, in front of the kurna, the washbasin, in the hottest part of the bath, the calidarium. The small platforms on each side of the kurna were used as seats, and around them runs a gutter to evacuate the water pouring from the basin. The servant is carrying a tray with a two-sided ivory comb and a tin box of henna used by her mistress to colour the tips of her fingers. Both figures are wearing clogs, or takunya, to protect their feet from the water on the floor.
The fact that the costume the woman is wearing in the present pastel is probably too elaborate to be worn for a visit to the bath and in any case too hot for the calidarium suggests that the scene actually depicted is a pre-nuptial ceremony (N. Avcioglu, Peripatetics of Style: The Architecture of Istanbul through the Eyes of the British Travellers, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1995). But it seems likely that Liotard rather than actually reproducing part of the wedding ceremony, probably organized a setting and asked his models to stand in a customary pose, wearing their best clothes, the wedding attire.
It was a tradition for every bride to visit the bath and have a party there just before the wedding day. For this occasion the bride would dye the tips of her hands and feet and her hair with henna. After this she would go to relax in the cool frigidarium, or sogukluk and smoke tobacco in a pipe, or shubuk, as a recreation. The last stage was the wedding ceremony. According to a letter written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman court in 1717, wealthy women who could not afford diamonds usually wore embroidred clothes, often with gold threads (P. Johnstone, Turkish Embroidery, London, 1985, p. 14). The woman is wearing five layers of clothes, first a white fur waist-coat embroidered with gold thread, with a blue striped kaftan underneath. Below the kaftan is a crimson dress, or entari, embroidered with flowers, and beneath a Bursa silk muslim blouse. She also wears a billowing embroidered silk shalvar. Round her neck is a string of gold coins: coins with the first line of the Koran on one side and the Sultan's tughra, his official monogram, on the reverse. It was a custom to wear jewellery made up of silver and gold coins. Around her wrist she wears a traditional Trabzon isi, a filigree gold bracelet named after the city on the Black Sea. Around her waist is an embroidered scarf, or murassa, usually tied by the bride's father during the wedding ceremony. Around her neck is a çevre, a square piece of embroidered cloth. Her head-dress is adorned with hanging beads resembling fringed and braided hair. The servant, probably a Circassian slave, wears a much simpler silk attire.
The present pastel was probably bought by John Hawkins, who travelled in the Levant for trade. It is probably no coincidence that the two pastels by Liotard that seem to have been owned by him were both of Turkish subjects: the other one, A Woman in Turkish Costume playing a Tambourine (Loche and Roethlisberger, op. cit., no. 40, illustrated), was also part of Mrs. John Heywood Johnstone's sale in 1925, is now in a Swiss private collection. John Hawkins collected pictures and sculptures and was a Fellow of the Royal Society and High Sheriff of Sussex in 1826. He commissioned Henry Herman to design his house, Bignor Park in Sussex, which was completed in 1826. A drawing of it by Constable is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. On his death in 1841, his son John Heywood Hawkins, M.P. for Newport, expanded his father's collection, acquiring numerous prints and drawings, details of which are mentioned under Lugt 1471. Part of the collection, but not the Liotard pastels was sold at Sotheby's between 29 April and 9 May 1850. At Hawkins' death in 1877, the remainder of the drawings collection passed, with the estate, to his nephew John Heywood Johnstone, M.P. for Horsham. Mrs. Heywood Johnstone died in 1924 and the pastel was subsequently sold at Christie's, 20 February 1925, lot 44. The pastel was bought by Mrs. Grace Hill, her executor, presumably on behalf of Robert Beart Lucas, son-in-law of Mrs. Heywood Johnstone, who is recorded as having brought the pastel into Christie's in 1937. He then presumably sold the drawing to a dealer who brought it to Switzerland, where it was bought by the father of the present owner. Loche and Roethlisberger confuse the provenance of the present pastel and the Winterthur one: the latter was not in Heywood Johnstone's collection.