The Turkish Family

Jules Pascin

1907

Painting of several women facing viewer, and cherub overhead. — In *The Turkish Family*, the term *Turkish* is likely a placeholder for a portrait of a modern Sephardic Jewish family like that of the artist. Notably, the family members wear modern European fashions, particularly common among the non-Turkish bourgeoisies of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. One man wears a top hat, while another wears the fez, a marker of loyalty to the Ottoman Empire and of aspirations to modernization and liberalization in Ottoman political and civic life.

In The Turkish Family, the term Turkish is likely a placeholder for a portrait of a modern Sephardic Jewish family like that of the artist. Notably, the family members wear modern European fashions, particularly common among the non-Turkish bourgeoisies of the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. One man wears a top hat, while another wears the fez, a marker of loyalty to the Ottoman Empire and of aspirations to modernization and liberalization in Ottoman political and civic life.