Thematic Essays

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By Geographical Region & Time Period

• 
  Prayer rug, late 16th–early 17th century; Ottoman
  Egypt, probably Cairo
  Wool; 65 x 35 in. (165.1 x 90.2 cm)
  Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917 (17.120.137)
  
• 
  Silver covers for a gospel, 1691
  Signed Astuatsatur Shahamir
  Kayseri, Turkey
  Gilt-silver repoussé plaques
  Gift of Mrs. Edward S. Harkness, 1916 (16.99)
  
• 
  Panel, 18th century
  Algeria
  Linen, silk, silver, and gold; 12 1/2 x 7 in. (31.75 x 17.78 cm)
  Gift of Mrs. Leonard E. Opdycke, 1928 (28.109.3)
  
• 
  Hanging, 18th century
  Tunisia
  Silk, damask weave, joined; H. 85 1/2 in. (217.2 cm), W. 68 1/4 in. (173.4 cm)
  Rogers Fund, 1909 (09.160)
  
• 

  Reception Room (Qa'a), Ottoman period, 1119 A.H. / 1707 A.D.
  Damascus, Syria
  Poplar wood with gesso relief, gold and tin leaf, glazes and paint; cypress, poplar, walnut, black mulberry, mother-of pearl, marble and other stones, stucco with glass, plaster, ceramic tiles, iron, brass; H. antechamber 22 ft. (6.7 m), seating area 19 ft. 11 in. (5.17 m), L. 26 ft. 2 in. (7.9 m), W. 16 ft. 8 in. (5 m)
  Gift of The Hagop Kevorkian Fund, 1970 (1970.170)

• 
  Bolster cover, mid-18th century
  Greece, Epirus
  Cotton embroidered with silk; 1 ft. 6 1/4 in. x 5 ft. 4 in. (46.3 x 162.5 cm)
  Gift of George D. Pratt, 1931 (31.42)
  
• 
  Tile panel with wavy-vine design, Ottoman period (ca. 1299–1923), 16th–17th century
  Syria, probably Damascus
  Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze; H. 22 in. (55.9 cm), W. 33 in. (83.8 cm)
  Rogers Fund, 1922 (22.185.13a–f)
  

At its height, the Ottoman empire (ca. 1299–1922) spread from Anatolia and the Caucasus across North Africa and into Syria, Arabia, and Iraq. Its size rivaled that of the great ^cAbbasid empire (750–1258), and it united many disparate parts of the Islamic world.

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman conquests allowed them control of many ports and sole access to the Black Sea, from which even Russian vessels were excluded, and trade among the provinces increased greatly. As the largest city in western Asia or Europe, Istanbul was the natural center of this commerce. Cairo became the main entrepôt for Yemeni coffee and Indian fabric and spices, and was itself a producer of rugs. Businessmen in Aleppo and Bursa sold silk to Ottoman, Venetian, French, and English merchants, and North African woven furnishings were popular throughout the region. Damascus was an important stop along the pilgrimage route to Mecca and Medina, supplying caravans on their way to those cities and goods to their residents.

As the largest city in western Asia or Europe, Istanbul was the natural center of this commerce.

Related

Multimedia

Timelines (11)

• Anatolia and the Caucasus, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Arabian Peninsula, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Balkan Peninsula, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Central and North Asia, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Central Europe (including Germany), 1600–1800 a.d.
• Egypt, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Iran, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Iraq, 1600–1800 a.d.
• South Asia, 1600–1800 a.d.
• The Eastern Mediterranean, 1600–1800 a.d.
• Western North Africa (The Maghrib), 1600–1800 a.d.

Primary Thematic Essays (6)

• Carpets from the Islamic World, 1600-1800
• Indian Textiles: Trade and Production
• The Art of the Ottomans after 1600
• The Arts of Iran, 1600–1800
• The Damascus Room
• The Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs, 1400-1600

Other Thematic Essays (27)

• Commercial Exchange, Diplomacy, and Religious Difference between Venice and the Islamic world
• Europe and the Islamic World, 1600-1800
• Exoticism in the Decorative Arts
• Fashion in Safavid Iran
• Islamic Arms and Armor
• Islamic Art and Culture: the Venetian Perspective
• Islamic Art of the Deccan
• Islamic Carpets in European Paintings
• List of Rulers of the Islamic World
• Nineteenth-Century Iran: Art and the Advent of Modernity
• Nineteenth-century Iran: Continuity and Revivalism
• Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Art
• Photographers in Egypt
• Renaissance Velvet Textiles
• Shah ^cAbbas and the Arts of Isfahan
• Silk Textiles from Safavid Iran, 1501
• Silks from Ottoman Turkey
• The Age of Süleyman "the Magnificent"
• The Art of the ^cAbbasid Period (750
• The Art of the Mughals after 1600 A.D.
• The Art of the Ottomans before 1600
• The Arts of the Book in the Islamic World, 1600-1800
• The Later Ottomans and the Impact of Europe
• The Nature of Islamic Art
• The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp
• Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797
• Venice's Principal Muslim Trading Partners: the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Safavids

Maps (2)

• West Asia, 1600-1800 A.D.
• World, 1600-1800 A.D.

Index Terms (19)

Art Movement/Style

• Abbasid Art in the Early Islamic Period
• Ottoman Art in the Later Islamic Period
• Safavid Art in the Later Islamic Period

Geography/Place

• Western North Africa
• The Balkan Peninsula
• Islamic World
• Anatolia and the Caucasus
• Arabian Peninsula
• The Eastern Mediterranean
• Iraq

Material and Technique

• Gilt Silver
• Pearl
• Stucco

Object

• Mosque Architecture from West Asia
• Room
• Period Rooms from West Asia
• Secular Architecture from West Asia

Subject Matter/Theme

• Interior
• Trade (1600–1800 a.d.)

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The armature of the empire was instrumental in spreading the central Ottoman aesthetic to many new regions. On the level of imperial patronage, artistic production and design were carefully controlled by various official institutions. The Imperial Corps of Court Architects, founded in the 1520s, was responsible for preparing designs, procuring materials, and maintaining construction books for all buildings sponsored by the Ottoman family and their high officials. The nakkaşhane, or royal scriptorium, designed the patterns for carpets, tiles, metalwork, and textiles produced in imperial-funded workshops. Governors posted from Istanbul were also important in maintaining a certain level of stylistic homogeneity, as attested by architecture in the neighborhood around the Cairene port of Bulaq, developed under Ottoman patronage, and paintings from late sixteenth-century Baghdad, then under the governorship of Mehmed III’s chief artist Hasan.

The Ottoman presence was in many ways limited to the major urban centers, however, and local culture was sustained among the different ethnic communities of the empire, such as the Christians of the Balkans and Armenia and the powerful Jewish and Greek merchants of Istanbul. In the provincial cities, coffeehouses and the homes of aristocratic families became the new centers of cultural exchange, replacing official institutions of learning and religion.

Local traditions in the arts continued to emerge even in official projects. Although the essential ground plan of the spacious, domed Ottoman mosque transferred from Istanbul, local interpretations of the plans sent from the capital affected the appearance of the facade or the proportions of the architectural elements. Eastern Mediterranean striped masonry appears at the Süleymaniye Mosque Complex in Damascus (1554–55) and barrel vaults, rather than semi-domes, surround the main dome of the Mosque of the Fisherman in Algiers (1660–61).

Eventually, the strain of administering such vast domains proved the downfall of the Ottomans. Although the sultans continued to rule in Turkey until 1922, battles to maintain borders against the Habsburgs in the West and the Safavids in the East eventually cost the Ottomans their European and Arabian provinces. In the nineteenth century, French forces occupied the Maghrib, and Greece won its independence in 1830. Treaties at the end of World War I officially dismantled the remnants of the empire.

Citation Sardar, Marika. "The Greater Ottoman Empire, 1600–1800". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grot/hd_grot.htm (October 2003) Further Reading Çiçek, Kemal, ed. The Great Ottoman–Turkish Civilisation. 4 vols.. Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2000. Daly, M. W., ed. Cambridge History of Egypt. 2 vols.. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Esposito, John, ed. The Oxford History of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kiel, Machiel Art and Society in Bulgaria of the Turkish Period. Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1985. Milstein, Rachel Miniature Painting in Ottoman Baghdad. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda, 1990. Scarce, Jennifer M., ed. Islam in the Balkans: Persian Art and Culture of the 18th and 19th Centuries . Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Museum, 1979. Spring, Christopher, and Julie Hudson North African Textiles. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. Related exhibitions and online features Special Exhibitions (including upcoming, current, and past exhibitions)

These related Museum Bulletin or Journal articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship. Dasakalakis Mathews, Annie-Christine "A Room of 'Splendor and Generosity' from Ottoman Damascus." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 32 (1997). JSTOR | PDF

Although the exact residence to which the Damascus Room belonged is unknown, these 3-D animations suggest how this residential reception chamber was most likely situated within a courtyard house.