19th C. Turkish Royal Court Debuts

Depiction of a 16th C. Turkish bride being taken to her wedding.

A COURT RECEPTION IN TURKEY

In Europe, social life is diversified by Court receptions, the opera, the theatre, balls, dinner-parties, garden-parties, rides and drives, walks, shopping, church-going, and foreign travel. All these have their counterpart more or less true or grotesque in Turkey. Take first Court receptions. These, it is true, are rare, but they are very magnificent when they do occur. The grandest was that held in 1863 at the fete of the circumcision of Youssouff Izzeddia Effendi. As this was a public occasion, answering to our Court drawing-rooms, the wives and daughters of all the great Pashas were obliged to present their congratulations in person to his Majesty; and, the strictest rule of all Turkish etiquette being for the time superseded by another even more stringent — no woman, whatever her rank, dare veil her face in the presence of the Commander of the Faithful.

I leave it to the imagination of those ladies who have undergone the ordeal of preparing a train and a curtsey for our own Court, what anxious cares were bestowed on ugly green and garnet-colored satin gowns, puffed pantaloons to match, on huge wadded paletots worn over the dress, and on French satin shoes. But, above all, the head-dress was the most difficult to arrange, many of the ladies having short-cropped hair. Everything depends on the set of the hótose or coiffure of colored silk gauze, and on the blaze of the jewels affixed to it; crescents of diamonds, aigrettes of diamonds, sapphires and rubies, pearls almost the size of strawberries, pear shaped diamond ear-rings as large as hazel nuts, or coronets resembling old-fashioned Imperial Crowns. Moreover, the head-dress must be most firmly attached, for, as with us, a Court débutante has to exercise herself in the most graceful manner of bending low before Royalty; there a lady has to practice how she may best advance demurely with a long square train passed between the feet, drop suddenly on her knees, dip her forehead three times to the ground, kiss the hem of the august personage's keurk, or furred robe, if that happens to be worn at the time— and after all this, retreat with good grace, and with out losing her jeweled cap at the feet of her Imperial Sovereign. 

Some of the younger married ladies were courageous enough to adopt the European corsage combined with Turkish train and trousers; but the most authoritative of all were three young khanuns who appeared in white Court dresses made in faultless Parisian style, trimmed with wreaths of white roses gemmed with dew, and very simple coiffures to match. These youthful Princesses looked altogether lovely, and when they advanced up the crowded presentation-chamber, they excited murmurs of admiration; they also saluted the Sultan by a deep courtesy only, he standing; but on passing to where the Validé Sultan was seated near her son, they made to her the customary acknowledgments. His Majesty was evidently much charmed by the grace and dignity of the sisters, and showed them marked attention by insisting that they should be seated— a sign of condescension and respect not extended to any other lady present. The Validé humored her son's whim, saying to the oldest of the young Princesses, while patting her on the shoulder, and motioning her to be seated on the low cushions beside her, “Come, my child, come! Be welcome. Sit beside me.”— Cornhill Magazine, 1876

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