The Turkish Family
Jules Pascin
1907
Image
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.
Credits
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
You may also like
Scenes of Jewish Life in Alsace
After an absence of many years, I returned to Alsace in November 1856, in response to the invitation of an old friend. During this first and short visit, I was greatly moved in recovering all the…
Six Prayers
Six Prayers was commissioned by the Jewish Museum in New York as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The six tapestries evoke Torah scrolls or prayer shawls. The shapes in the central part of…
Jews in the Russian Revolution
[ . . . ] Not only did Jews not have anything to do, even remotely, with oppositional circles expressing discontent with the…
You may also like
Scenes of Jewish Life in Alsace
After an absence of many years, I returned to Alsace in November 1856, in response to the invitation of an old friend. During this first and short visit, I was greatly moved in recovering all the…
Six Prayers
Six Prayers was commissioned by the Jewish Museum in New York as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The six tapestries evoke Torah scrolls or prayer shawls. The shapes in the central part of…
Jews in the Russian Revolution
[ . . . ] Not only did Jews not have anything to do, even remotely, with oppositional circles expressing discontent with the…