CIRCLE OF JEAN-BAPTISTE VANMOUR, FLEMISH, LATE 17TH/EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The term Baltahdjy, by which the figure in our painting identified, comes from the Turkish word for hatchet-bearer (baltah). There were two classes of Baltahdjy at the Ottoman Court, one of which was zulufly, from the word zuluf or lock of hair. Traditionally, as our figure, they would wear red robes, tall conical hats and have a lock of hair falling on either side of their shoulder (Frederic Shoberl (ed.), The World in Miniature. Turkey, Being A Description of the Manners, Customs, Dresses and other Peculiarities Charicteristic of the Inhabitants of the Turkish Empire, Vol. III, facsimile reprint, London, 2011). Their official function was to attend to the Princes locked up (enfermes) in the harem or palace.

Depictions of these Baltahdjy appear in both Ottoman painting, for instance in a painting by Levni for the Surname-i Vehbi of 1727 and in European impressions of the Ottoman Court, see for example a portrait of Sultan Ahmed III by Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (Alev Taskin (ed.), Harem. House of the Sultan, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2012, no.179, pp.298-99 and Olga Nefedova, A Journey into the World of the Ottomans. The Art of Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737), Milan, 2009, no.128, p.131). A print of a painting by Vanmour of the same subject, similarly identified, is in the New York Public Library (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-69d2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99).