‘Rather Turkish than papistic’

The Chessmen museum owns a porcelain chess set of which the design is described as Middle Eastern. On November 1, 1922, the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and the last sultan, Mehmet VI, banished. It is therefore a good moment to reflect on the influence of the Ottoman Empire on our western culture.

The Ottoman Empire came into being in 1299 and was one of the largest empires in world history. With the fall of Christian Constantinople, current Istanbul, in 1453, the Christian East did not only lose its capital city but also its power in that region, never to be recovered. The Islamic sultans would further expand their territory and religion, and Christianity became a mainly western religion.

Caftans as far as Poland
The Ottoman border kept moving higher up into Europe (in 1529, the Ottoman army was at the gates of Vienna) and from the 15th century onwards, economic and cultural exchange with the Ottomans were a decisive factor in the culture of the Central European courts. The pomp and circumstance at the Ottoman sultan´s court was known throughout the world and traders loved buying carpets, luxury items and exotic spices in the Ottoman East. It became an elite fashion to wear caftans, usually offered as gifts by Ottoman diplomats. The handing over of caftans was an important part of the diplomatic rituals at the Ottoman court.

For European courtiers oriental goods, clothes and carpets became an important way of showing the outside world their social status. They copied Ottoman hairdos, and strapped on their most precious weapons: especially princes looked like they had walked straight out of an Ottoman fairy tale. However, because of the Ottoman occupation of a large part of Hungary, luxury garments, fabrics and shoes also became available outside of court circles. The most coveted Ottoman garment was the cloak, popular as far as in Poland. These overcoats even determined the look of the Polish national costume from the 17th until the 19th century.

Playing chess on a carpet
The trading hotspot of oriental rugs in the 16th century was Istanbul. The rugs were in high demand with Europe´s rich: only the aristocracy, important traders and courtiers were able to afford them. This type of carpet can be found depicted in paintings and images from the same period. The rugs are named after the artists that painted them. Hans Memling (ca. 1440-1494) for example, painted a type of Anatolian carpet a number of times which is now known as a Memling rug. Hans Holbein de Jonge had his own Holbein rugs. Typical of the Holbein rug are the geometrical patterns in the centre, which are repeated over and over again.

A famous example is the painting Game of Chess, dated 1555, painted by Sofonisba Anguissola. In this painting we can see three girls playing chess while a servant observes them, an Italian landscape in the background. The sisters are sitting around a table with an oriental carpet and a wooden chess board on top. The chess pieces also seem to have some features from the Ottoman culture, such as the pawns´ pointy hats that stick out backwards.

In this age, costume portraits of the Ottoman nobility and military officers were also in high demand. These images show large turbans and the before mentioned long overcoats, as well as the hats worn by our chess pieces. They are the headgear of the Janissaries, soldiers from the Ottoman elite troops, popular models in the work of European artists. The high demand of these images wasn´t surprising, given the presence of the Janissaries all throughout Europe. Their presence got the Europeans to get used to the Ottoman culture and dress and these even became the fashion at the European courts. In spite of the military threat, the Ottomans were a popular folk: the rebellion of the protestant Netherlands against Catholic Spain coined the famous slogan ´Rather Turkish than papistic´ or Catholic.

The pawns of the Middle East chess set at the Chessmen Museum aren´t wearing Janissary hats. Their turbans do show some Ottoman traits though, and elephants are not an uncommon sight in the vast Ottoman Empire. All the same, we could be looking at some Indian figurines; Sikhs do wear turbans as well, after all. The king´s headgear doesn´t look typically Ottoman either, which is also a bit odd: you would expect an Ottoman sultan to wear a turban, and certainly one that is bigger than everyone else´s. Some further research into the origins of this chess game seems necessary.

By Marjolein Overmeer