The Sultana in the official coach

Description

Featured in the 1836 collaborative work of Thomas Allom and Robert Walsh, this steel engraving depicts a palace woman (Sultana) and her retinue taking a promenade at a recreation area in Istanbul in a traditional Ottoman 'koçu' carriage. While the composition illustrates the richly wood-carved and tassel-decorated ox-cart, women wearing ferace and yaşmak, and their accompanying attendants; it aesthetically documents the empire's lively outdoor culture, transportation practices, and the tradition of the palace and the public sharing the same public space through the civilians sitting by the roadside and a joyfully running dog.