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Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2011, vol. 6 Before the Odalisque: Renaissance Representations of Elite Ottoman Women Heather Madar he much-mythologized harem of the Ottoman sultans occupied a Tcentral place in European Orientalist thought for centuries.1 The harem, presented as an exotic world of forbidden sexuality inhabited by compliant yet sexually voracious women, appears in literature, art, and travel writing. While the most famous expressions of this harem fixa- tion date from later centuries,2 a focus on the harem as libidinous zone is demonstrably present in written sources from the sixteenth century. Yet an exploration of sixteenth-century European images turns up a surprising dearth of imagery in this vein. While Renaissance art lacks the languid odalisques or detailed views of the physical environment of the sultan’s harem familiar from later works, a series of largely overlooked representa- tions of elite Ottoman women do exist. Dating from the mid-sixteenth century, these images feature imagined portraits of sultanas — elite women such as Ottoman princesses, the sultan’s mother (valide sultan), or the sul- tan’s preferred concubine (haseki).3 Hurrem, the wife of sultan Süleyman, and his daughter Mihrimah appear most frequently in this genre. Yet strik- ing differences are immediately evident between their depiction and later, more familiar, views of the harem and harem women. The women shown in the Renaissance tradition were members of the sultan’s harem, yet they are not shown within a harem setting, nor do the images make reference to it. Although they are visually marked as Other, largely through the atten- tion given to their exotic dress, they are also presented as women who are of interest as individuals, possessing status and political significance. 1 EMWJ_6_For11.indb 1 6/27/11 4:05:36 PM 2 EMWJ 2011, vol. 6 Heather Madar Beginning with the earliest encounters of the West with the Islamic world during the Middle Ages, European writers characterized Islam as licentious and Muslim women as potential sexual temptresses of hapless Christian men.4 The Ottoman Empire was similarly sexualized in Western discourse. Early Modern European travelers made frequent mention of the beautiful yet lascivious women of the sultan’s harem and wrote of lesbian activity at the bathhouse and sodomy among the Ottoman male elite.5 The sexualized image of Islam and Muslim women is reflected in the European fixation on the harem, particularly the sultan’s harem at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, commonly referred to as the seraglio by European writers.6 The imperial harem was seen as the ultimate site of sexual permissiveness and decadence.7 Western fictions of the harem are widely recognized as emerging in the late seventeenth century and becoming a dominant Orientalist trope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.8 According to Mohja Kahf, the harem became “the definitive topos of the Muslim woman and indeed the entire world of Islam” by the eighteenth century.9 Because harems remained off limits to European men, discussions of the harem were largely exercises in fantasy. Yet this very unknowability heightened their aura of titillating mystery.10 “Descriptions of the seraglio,” according to Alain Grosrichard, “are alike to the point of repetition.”11 They typically focus on a narrow set of themes: the lassitude and indolence of the women, opulence and luxury, the sexually charged atmosphere of the harem, the lustful yet cruel sultan, and sexual perversion. From the eighteenth century on, harem discussions also see the harem as a prison, and the women therein as oppressed.12 The notion of the harem was also inextricably linked in the Western mind with despotism. Peirce writes: “Europe elaborated a myth of oriental tyranny and located its essence in the sultan’s harem. Orgiastic sex became a meta- phor for power corrupted.”13 The harem thus became a locus of comple- mentary and overlapping Orientalist tropes. Although harem discourse is primarily associated with a later period, its seeds are clearly present in sixteenth-century materials, particularly narratives of travel to Istanbul. Authors of such narratives were men from a range of European countries who had traveled to Istanbul for numer- EMWJ_6_For11.indb 2 6/27/11 4:05:36 PM Renaissance Representations of Elite Ottoman Women 3 ous reasons. Some were former captives, while others were ambassadors or attached to diplomatic envoys sent to the sultan’s court by various European powers. Their texts were often published in multiple languages and disseminated widely, creating a shared basis of seemingly authentic information about the Ottomans across Western Europe.14 The material covered in these texts often overlapped with repetition of motifs and fre- quent plagiarism.15 The discussions of Ottoman women in these narratives focus on a narrow set of themes, which largely echo the themes of later harem discourse: the beauty of Turkish women and of the women in the sultan’s harem in particular, grooming habits, Muslim marriage practices (including a requisite discussion of polygamy), the sexually charged nature of the harem, and unchecked female sexuality at the bath. The sultan’s harem, the women who lived there, and their reported beauty received considerable attention in Renaissance texts. Thomas Dallam, an English organ-maker who traveled to Istanbul in 1599 at the behest of Elizabeth I, commented that they were “verrie prettie.”16 Another common theme is the diversity of harem women and their reputed Christian origins. Nicolas de Nicolay, who accompanied the French ambassador to Istanbul in 1549, describes how “the wives and concubines of the great Turk, which in number are about 200. being the most part daughters of Christians, some being taken by courses on the seas or by land, aswel from Grecians, Hongarians, Wallachers, Mingreles, Italians as other Christian nations.”17 As Schick comments: “This no doubt served the important function of creating a fantasy of exogamy that was ‘safe’ because its women were not really other.”18 The function of harem women as sexual objects for the sultans is also noted. Goughe notes that the sultans do not typically marry and describes how in order “to satisfye their pleasure, and libidinous lustes (wherunto in moste vile and filthy maner, they are subiect, above all other nations)” they instead take “virgins frome all partes of the worlde.”19 An extended passage from the 1587 Faustbuch also makes clear that the primary conception of harem women was as sexual objects. Faust, after conjuring up a thick fog around and inside the sultan’s palace, enters the harem. His sexual encounters with the most attractive of the women fol- low: EMWJ_6_For11.indb 3 6/27/11 4:05:36 PM 4 EMWJ 2011, vol. 6 Heather Madar Faustus tooke the fairest by the hand, and led her into a chamber, where after his maner hee fell to dalliance, and thus he continued a whole day and night: and when hee had delighted himselfe sufficiently with her, hee put her away, and made his spirite bring him another. and so hee passed away sixe daies, hauing each day his pleasure of a sundry Lady, and that of the fairest.20 The subsequent report of the event by one of the harem women to the sultan also stresses her sexual appetite: “hee lay with vs starke naked, kissed and colled us, and so delighted me that for my part, I would he came two or three times a week to serue me in such sort againe.”21 Sixteenth-century texts also highlight the sexuality of Ottoman women generally. Theodore Spandounes, who wrote a treatise on the his- tory of the Ottomans from the perspective of a Byzantine exile who had spent time in Istanbul, commented on the lascivious nature of Ottoman women, explaining that it was for this reason that they were secluded and guarded by eunuchs.22 Several authors also give vivid accounts of sexual activity among women at the bath, a key signifier of transgressive Muslim female sexuality from the Renaissance. In his book from 1545, Luigi Bassano, who was in Istanbul in the 1530s and likely served as a page in the sultan’s court, describes how “[T]hey intimately wash one another, and one neighbor the other, or one sister the other: for which reason there is great love between women, due to the familiarity that develops from washing and rubbing each other.”23 Nicolay, whose discussion of the bath is depen- dent on Bassano’s, adds that “perceiving some maide or woman of excellet beauty they wil not ceaste until they have found means to bath with them, and to handle and grope theme everywhere at their pleasures so ful they are of luxuriousness and feminine wantonness.”24 The charged nature of the harem is also underlined in these texts by a stress on the forbidden and furtive glimpse. Dallam details how he was able to gaze, unsuspected, at “thirtie of the Grand Sinyor’s Concobines” through a grate in the wall. He describes his scopophilic pleasure as he “stood so longe looking upon them. .that sighte did please me wondrous well,” and notes how he “could desarne the skin of their thies” through their clothing.25 The illicit nature of his gaze is underlined by the resulting anger of his guide, and by writers such as Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, ambassa- EMWJ_6_For11.indb 4 6/27/11 4:05:36 PM Renaissance Representations of Elite Ottoman Women 5 dor of Ferdinand I to Istanbul, who stress the inaccessibility of Ottoman women.26 There are some significant differences between sixteenth-century discussions of the harem and later harem discourse. In particular, sixteenth-century texts often show an awareness of the education and activity that occurred in the harem, which diverges from the later trope of the passive, indolent, and even ignorant harem woman.

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