The Kings’ gift. Manuscript with sexual illustrations
209 leaves

Ottoman Empire; between 1799 and 1817

Each leaf: 32.2 x 20.5 cm

Inventory number 8/2018

This manuscript belongs to a genre of erotic literature known in Turkish as bahname (from Arabic bah, sex, lust, libido). In the Ottoman Empire, the genre dates back as far as the fifteenth century, appearing mainly in the form of older texts translated from Persian and Arabic.

The main text of the manuscript is a Turkish translation of an Arabic erotic manual attributed to the Egyptian author al-Tifashi (d. 1253), who was a scholar of sexual hygiene and mineralogy.¹ In addition, it contains several shorter texts about the beauty and characteristics of men, women, and young boys, as well as a number of shorter humorous anecdotes with erotic content.²

The texts are accompanied by no less than eighty-five miniature paintings on vellum, done by several different, anonymous artists. Some of the paintings accurately reflect the action outlined in the texts, while others amplify their erotic undertones considerably.

Looking beyond their explicitly sexual aspects, the miniatures of this manuscript are in many respects similar to other Ottoman paintings from the same period. The painstaking depictions of different costumes are reminiscent of numerous contemporary representations of both local and exotic men and women (see, for example, 172/2006 and 173/2006). Furthermore, the use of perspective in the rendition of landscapes and architecture as well as the use of shadow effects show that the artists drew inspiration from European art, a widespread trend around 1800 (see e.g. 27/2008).

”A Tavern Scene” (fol. 34r) shows two Greek boys dressed as women dancing in a tavern in Istanbul’s Galata district. The guest shown seated at the table facing the viewer is interesting because he seems to reappear in several of the subsequent sex scenes (fol. 128r), as well as in the full-length portrait that concludes the manuscript (fol. 209a). The man’s distinctive turban identifies him as an Ottoman official, and it is possible that this is the manuscript’s unnamed patron.³

Published in

Sotheby’s, London 4/4 1978, lot 120;
Marina Wallace, Martin Kemp and Joanne Bernstein: Seduced. Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now, Barbican Centre, London 2007, pp. 120-121;
Tülay Artan and Irvin Cemil Schick: “Ottomanizing-pornotopia. Changing Visual Codes in Eighteenth-century Ottoman Erotic Miniatures,” in Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif (ed.): Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art, Farnham 2013, fig. 7.8-7.9, pp. 178-179;
Sotheby’s, London 25/4 2018, lot 105;
Irvin Cemil Schick: “Between the Abstraction of Miniatures and the Literalism of Photography. Amateur Erotica in Early Twentieth-century Turkey,” Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia, 5/6, 2017, fig. 7-8, pp. 6, 8-9;
Musa Shadeedi: “Coming Out of the Colonial Closet,” Errant Journal, 8, 2025, pp. 82, 85, 88;

Footnotes

J. Ruska and O. Kahl: “al-Tifashi” in Encyclopedia of Islam, New edition, Leiden 1960–2002, vol. 10, p. 476.

Tülay Artan and Irvin Cemil Schick: “Ottomanizing-pornotopia: Changing visual codes in eighteenth-century Ottoman erotic miniatures” in Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif (eds.): Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art, Farnham 2013, pp. 158 and 177.

A facsimile edition of the manuscript, including translations and several scholarly articles, is currently in preparation.