November 19th post: Who IS that in photo? Alison Miner, old time reader, writes; Tried to get snarky about covered Muslim women and turns out Orientalist joke’s on me:

27 Nov

MY original post:

What is this a photo of?

19 Nov

Jeez, you know, I don’t want to be snide, but what’s being photographed here?  Is it the umbrella?  Is it so her children and grandchildren can remember how blindingly white her mandyli always was?  How gracefully the kimono-like folds of her doulama always fell?  The embroidered edges of her salwaria against her elegant pasoumakia?

Why is she, herself, even in the picture?

Vah, but Ayşe Teyze‘s eyes always gliterred when she smiled…   Vah va…

But wait…  Is that Ayşe Teyze?………

Screen Shot 2019-11-19 at 6.55.11 PM

Portrait of a Woman, Istanbul, 1870s Bir İstanbul Kadını, 1870’ler

Ottoman Imperial Archives

@OttomanArchive

 

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Well Alison came up with the smartest answer:

Do you think these photos were actually used as family photos?  I always saw these photos (and there are a LOT of them) as made for westerners, and serving a few purposes.
I think there’s the “look at how strange/exotic these musselmans are!” angle, for sure. But have you ever seen a studio photo of a tribal woman with a veil on? I haven’t seen any that I can think of.
More often than not, these studio photos feature (very pale) women in very fashionable Western clothes, with either a super sheer veil, or a super (blindingly white, for instance) obvious one. I think they were intentionally designed as sexual objects – they demanded the viewer imagine what was underneath. And I’m sure some Victorian dudes were more than happy to oblige.
The other photos of women that were part of these commercial sets tend to be darker women lounging seductively with nargiles. Those are pretty clear in their intentions, I think.
These “hidden” ladies are just a sexy lady with the added benefit of performing their upper classness, right? I don’t see religiosity in them anywhere.
Maybe this is all obvious, and you were just being funny. But I spend a lot of time typing “Istanbul” into digital image collections and not having anyone to share my critique of what I find. ;)

 

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Alison,

I was trying to be funny but I’ve clearly failed.  Here I was trying to be snarky about Islam and the covering of women (I’ve seen plenty of these photos around C-town and it never occurred to me — naivëly  that they were posed any tourist objects of any kind.  As you rightly point out: “These “hidden” ladies are just a sexy lady with the added benefit of performing their upper classness, right? I don’t see religiosity in them anywhere.)  Instead they flipped a perfect Orientalist ippon on me.

Share some more of these with us?  I and reader will greatly appreciate.  Come to New York, chavala

Thanks again,

Niko

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