‘Turkish Café, Tesanj’

Commentary
‘Turkish Café, Tesanj’
Accession number: 
Balfour Library, Eur 8vo (6)
Collection: 
Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Page featuring an engraving (made after a drawing by Arthur Evans), captioned ‘Turkish Café, Tešanj’, published in Arthur J. Evans, Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot during the Insurrection, August and September 1875 (London, 1876), p.117.

Artist: Unidentified engraver, after an original drawing [1941.8.169] by Arthur John Evans
Date of publication: 1876
Continent: Europe
Geographical area: Southern Europe
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Region/Place: Tešanj
Cultural group: Turkish
Format: Woodcut engraving
Page size: 234 x 141 mm
Acquisition: Henry Balfour. Bequeathed February 1939

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Research notes: It has been identified by Philip Grover that this woodcut engraving by an unnamed artist was based on an original drawing [1941.8.169] by Arthur John Evans, being the depiction of the interior of a Turkish café visited in Tešanj. It was published in Evans’ account of his journey, Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot during the Insurrection, August and September 1875 (London, 1876), p.117, printed with the caption ‘Turkish Café, Tešanj’. Evans recorded in the volume: ‘From here I adjourned to a neighbouring café, discovered by entering another stable and climbing another leaving L--- [Lewis, the author’s brother and travelling companion] to the safe keeping of our Zaptieh, who was snoring on the floor of our room. I found myself amidst a bevy of comfortable Turks, who were alternately sipping their mocha and smoking their long chibouks, - for they belonged to the old school, and were robed in flowing dressing-gowns and surmounted with pompous turbans’: Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot, p.118.