Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
The Ottoman sultans did not wear crowns like European kings but attached aigrettes to their turbans as a symbol of rank and power. They are also known to have worn jewelled helmets in ceremonial processions into conquered cities. The Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto (d.1536) wrote in his diary that in he saw in the window of a jeweller’s shop on the Rialto in Venice a helmet encrusted with large diamonds, pearls, brilliants and turquoises that had been made to sell to Süleyman the Magnificent (r.1520—66). Although no helmet quite so magnificent as that described by Sanuto has survived to the present day, the Topkapi Saray treasury collection contains helmets made by Ottoman palace jewellers. These bear floral decoration with precious stones and inscriptions from the Koran concerning the power, justice, succour, forgiveness and other qualities of God, and the subject of conquest and victory. Helmets were lined with felt so that they fitted comfortably and kept out the cold.
Around the rim of this iron helmet is a broad inscription band containing the first four verses of the ‘Victory’ sura of the Koran (48:1-4) written in large thuluth script in a calligraphic composition, damascened in gold. Above this band is a border consisting of rows of palmettes surmounted by turquoises and rubies. The area above this is decorated with five oval lobedmedallions filled with serrated lanceolate leaves and katayj flowers with rubies and turquoises set in the centre. The ground around the medallions is filled with similar floral decoration to that of the medallions. The narrow band at the crown of the helmet is decorated with floral leafy scrolls with small turquoises and rubies mounted in the centre of the flowers, and at the centre of the crown is a circle encrusted with turquoises and rubies.
The peak of the helmet is inscribed with the first words from verse 13 of the ‘Formations’ sura of the Koran (61:13) in thuluth script inside two cartouches. The ground around the cartouches is decorated with gold rosettes with rubies and turquoises in the centre and branches. Attached to the front of the helmet is a nose guard bearing the kelime-i tevhid (declaration of God’s unity) in thuluth arranged as a calligraphic composition. The ear guard consist of four segments. In the centre is a pear-shaped motif surrounded by rows of turquoises
and rubies and filled with iron filigree scrollwork. The areas to either side of the pear-shaped motif are decorated
with narrow borders filled with turquoises and rubies and small gold floral scrolls. The neck guard is inscribed with the last words of verse 89 of the ‘Wall between heaven and hell’ sura (Koran 7:89) in thuluth script. Below this is an inscription in nastapljq that is worn and illegible. The neck guard is also decorated with gold flowers, rubies and turquoises.
• Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
• Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
