Lot 145 at Bonhams is a pair 19th-century leather slippers (est £3,000–5,000)
Items to amuse the Ottoman palate range from a portrait of Süleyman the Magnificent, engraved in Innsbruck in 1601, to an Ottoman leather wallet inscribed ‘Constantinople 1768’ and bows and arrows made in 1848–49. A collection of hoşaf spoons is once again incorrectly described as sherbet spoons – try drinking lemonade with a spoon. A charming pair of Ottoman slippers once belonged to William Hook Morley ((1815-1860), the trustee and librarian of the Royal Asiatic Society who discovered the missing manuscript of the Jami’ al-tawarikh of Rashid-al-Din Hamdani. Early on in the auction is a remarkable collection of Sogdian Samite textiles from Central Asia dated to between the 7th and 9th centuries AD.
Lot 123: 'Süleyman the Magnificent', engraved by Dominic Custos (d. 1615) after Giovanni Batista Fontana (d. 1587), Innsbruck, 1601 (est. £2,000–3,000)
Lot 124: A leather wallet inscribed 'Constantinople 1768' (est. £2,000–3,000)
Lot 136: A collection of 11 Ottoman so called 'sherbet' spoons in ivory, bone and coral, actually used for hoşaf (est. £3,000–5,000)
Lot 132: Lacquered horn and wood bow, 'by Zühdi', with 12 arrows, dated AH 1265/ AD 1848-49 (est £8,000–12,000)
Lot 145 at Bonhams is a pair 19th-century leather slippers (est £3,000–5,000)
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
