The Turban: Oriental Costume, Abbreviated
Baroque prints and drawings that depicted turbaned figures clearly had their roots in the previously discussed images of Orientals. Printed material was one of the major ways that iconography of the Orient disseminated throughout Europe. Printed anti-Turkish propaganda circulated throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, and established a precedent for Baroque images. Printed images made a direct connection between turbaned figures and the Turk, establishing an iconography specific to works on paper. While larger panel paintings typically dealt with more nuanced details in Oriental dress, printed material tended to overlook these nuances. The turbaned type was born by this visual shorthand, becoming an abbreviated image of an Oriental foreigner who wore a distinct headdress rarely seen by the early modern European.[1]
[1] Heather Madar “Durer’s depictions of the Ottoman Turks: a case of early modern Orientalism?” in The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450-1750, (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011).