The Inside of a Mosque, the Dervishes Dancing (Aubry de La Mottraye's "Travels throughout Europe, Asia and into Part of Africa...," London, 1724, vol. I, pl. 16)
Not on view
This mid-eighteenth-century illustration of Aubry de La Mottraye’s travelogue depicts a scene that the author witnessed in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). The text details the ceremony of the sama of the Mevlevi Sufis, sometimes referred to as the "whirling dervishes" on account of their rotational movement. Depicted in a traditional samahane (hall for the sama), the dervishes in this image are depicted in differing moments of the ceremony, one rising, some in various states of whirling, another crouching to kiss the floor. Nearby musicians at right play the ney (flute) and a daf (drum), while a sheikh reads from the Qur’an.
Hogarth derived his image from one that Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin had engraved after Jean-Baptiste Vanmour, titled Les Dervichs dans leur temple de Péra, achevant de tourner (The Dervishes Turning in their Mosque at Pera (a district of Istanbul)). This had appeared in Recueil de cent estampes répresentant différents nations du Levant (A Collection of One Hundred Prints Representing Nations of the Levant, 1712-13, pl. 102). To clarify his source, Hogarth reduced the number of dancers from ten to six and adopted a more elevated viewpoint. His later image shows more of the interior together with congregants seated in pews along the walls.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
