Recueil des differens costumes des principaux officiers et magistrats de la porte;

£50,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

Two extremely rare works bound in a single volume: the first work illustrating the costume of the Ottoman court and the Ottoman empire, almost certainly assembled in Paris in celebration of the enthronement of Sultan Abdul Hamid I (Abd al-Hamid, Sultan 1774-1789); the second work recording the costumes and people of Algiers by the artist Andreas Matthäus Wolfgang (1660-1736), who was sold into slavery, along with his brother, and held in Algiers from 1684-1691. The first work demonstrates how the French, along with many other European powers, were fascinated by the hierarchical arrangements of Ottoman Society and the etiquette of the various strata particularly in their dress. The author or editor of this work is unknown; perhaps the publisher Onfroy was also the editor. A few plates identify the artist and the engraver as Pitre and Juillet respectively. The plates depict the costume of the Ottoman court and military functionaries in detail and also that of the fourteen 'nations'. The work is divided into sections, each devoted to the costume of the different orders of society; they range from the Sultan and his close court to those from the more distant parts of the Empire, such as North Africa. This work develops the 16th-century imagery of Nicolas de Nicolay and the Blackmer catalogue considered that about a third of the plates were based on Nicolay prototypes, taken from his book of Turkish costume. The second work is a product of the artist Andreas Matthäus Wolfgang's ex

• Binding: Hardcover

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