Fille Turque, jouant du Canon, plate 50 from "Recueil de cent estampes représentent differentes nations du Levant"

Art Historical Context

This striking print, titled *Fille Turque, jouant du Canon* (Turkish Girl Playing the Kanun), comes from the influential 1714–15 publication *Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes nations du Levant*. Created through etching and engraving after designs by Jean Baptiste Vanmour, the plate captures a young woman gracefully playing the kanun, a traditional plucked zither central to Ottoman music. Vanmour, a Flemish artist who spent years in Constantinople, provided some of the most detailed European depictions of daily life in the Ottoman Empire during this period. The larger series, commissioned by French ambassador Marquis de Ferriol and engraved in part by Gérard Jean Baptiste Scotin I, offered European audiences one of the earliest comprehensive visual surveys of Ottoman society, including courtiers, merchants, musicians, and religious figures. As plate 50, this work highlights the role of women in cultural traditions often overlooked in Western accounts. Its precise linework and careful attention to costume and instrument reflect both documentary intent and artistic elegance. Today housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints, the image remains a valuable record of cross-cultural exchange in the early eighteenth century. It invites viewers to appreciate the sophistication of Ottoman musical heritage while considering how such prints shaped European perceptions of the “Levant.”

About the Artist

Jacques le Hay|Jean Baptiste Vanmour|Gérard Jean Baptiste Scotin I (French| ) · 1671 |1650 –1737 |1750

French, Valenciennes 1671–1737 Istanbul (Constantinople)|