The Tortoise Trainer, Osman Hamdi Bey
Osman Hamdi Bey·The Tortoise Trainer·1906·Oil on canvas·Pera Museum, Istanbul↓

Osman Hamdi Bey Ottoman, 1842 – 1910

The Tortoise Trainer, 1906

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An old man in an outdated red robe and turban, a ney flute in his hands and a drum on his back, tries to train five tortoises in a worn upper room of the Green Mosque in Bursa. They ignore him and eat the leaves. Osman Hamdi Bey may have given the man his own features, and the scene is often read as a satire on slow Ottoman reform.

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Above the pointed window runs an inscription meaning "The healing of the hearts is meeting with the beloved."

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