DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62355#0285
A TURKISH APARTMENT.
125
A TURKISH APARTMENT
" The moveables were prodigally rich:
Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they; carpets every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, that made you wish
You could glide o'er them like a golden fish."
Byron.
Nothing can exceed the beautiful cleanliness of a Turkish harem, save its
order: not a grain of dust, nor a footmark, sullies the surface of the Indian
matting that covers the large halls whence the several apartments branch off in
every direction ; while the furniture of the rooms themselves is always fresh, and
scrupulously arranged. The ceilings are elaborately ornamented; and in the
houses of the rich, where the apartments are of great size, a curtain of tapestry
is frequently used as a mean of reducing their extent. The windows are always
closely set together, and very numerous ; and where the room chances to be
situated in an angle of the building, the three unconnected sides have very much
the appearance of a lantern.
The interior chosen by the artist as the subject of his sketch is a fair specimen
of the higher order of domestic architecture, and belongs to a house once inhabited
by one of the Greek princes, which will account for the ample hearth,—an
accessory never found in an apartment originally designed by a Turk ; in every
other respect it is precisely the description of room common to every handsome
harem.
At the lower end of each apartment are large closets for the reception of the
bedding (for none are appropriated exclusively as sleeping chambers), and the
slaves of the household no sooner ascertain that the visitor has risen, than half
a dozen of them commence removing every vestige of the couch, and depositing
within the closet the mattrasses of embroidered satin, the sheet of gauze, or
worked muslin, the half dozen pillows of brocaded silk, and the wadded coverlets,
rich with silver fringe, and gay with party-coloured needle work, which have
125
A TURKISH APARTMENT
" The moveables were prodigally rich:
Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon,
So costly were they; carpets every stitch
Of workmanship so rare, that made you wish
You could glide o'er them like a golden fish."
Byron.
Nothing can exceed the beautiful cleanliness of a Turkish harem, save its
order: not a grain of dust, nor a footmark, sullies the surface of the Indian
matting that covers the large halls whence the several apartments branch off in
every direction ; while the furniture of the rooms themselves is always fresh, and
scrupulously arranged. The ceilings are elaborately ornamented; and in the
houses of the rich, where the apartments are of great size, a curtain of tapestry
is frequently used as a mean of reducing their extent. The windows are always
closely set together, and very numerous ; and where the room chances to be
situated in an angle of the building, the three unconnected sides have very much
the appearance of a lantern.
The interior chosen by the artist as the subject of his sketch is a fair specimen
of the higher order of domestic architecture, and belongs to a house once inhabited
by one of the Greek princes, which will account for the ample hearth,—an
accessory never found in an apartment originally designed by a Turk ; in every
other respect it is precisely the description of room common to every handsome
harem.
At the lower end of each apartment are large closets for the reception of the
bedding (for none are appropriated exclusively as sleeping chambers), and the
slaves of the household no sooner ascertain that the visitor has risen, than half
a dozen of them commence removing every vestige of the couch, and depositing
within the closet the mattrasses of embroidered satin, the sheet of gauze, or
worked muslin, the half dozen pillows of brocaded silk, and the wadded coverlets,
rich with silver fringe, and gay with party-coloured needle work, which have