In 1745, the marriage of Louis XV's son was celebrated with a masqued ball held at the royal château at Versailles. The event was afterwards dubbed the Yew Tree Ball because the king and his attendants had arrived dressed as topiary yew trees. Cochin's engraving memorializing the celebration shows many of the attendees in Turkish and Chinese costumes. Visible in this detail are six gargantuan and massively turbaned Turks. Their exaggerated forms suggest the taste for exoticism, a vogue that reached its peak in Paris in the 1740s.

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