A pair of rare Dutch Delft polychrome dancing darwishes

EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A pair of rare Dutch Delft polychrome dancing darwishes
Early 18th Century
Possibly produced for the Ottoman Turkish market, naturalistically modelled in relief as a male harlequinesque figure wearing: a blue bonnet, a tied bodice decorated with flowerheads and holding a yellow stick in his right arm towards his head, further adorned with a green skirt and with pointed slippers (babouches) underneath, on manganese red shaped support, above a hexagonal base decorated with bands of leaves and a blue scale pattern
25cm. high (2)

Lot Essay

c.f. D.F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Delft, p. 317, ill. 366 for a large harlequinesque figure
There is a blue and white darwish in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Darwishes (Dervisjen) belong to a Muslim sect that wishes to reach a spiritual state of mind through sessions of rotating in a fast pace. They hold a stick above their heads in order to maintain their equilibrium. They quickly reach a state of self hypnosis. They are still active and well in their headquarters in Konya, Anatolian Turkey

See illustration

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