Oil on canvas ‘Ottomane’, Jean-Baptiste Van Mour, 18th century

This 18th-century oil painting on canvas is a work by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Van Mour (1671–1737), entitled ‘Ottomane’. The composition depicts a figure sitting cross-legged on a sofa draped in red fabric, set against a dark background. The figure is wearing an ochre-coloured garment trimmed with gold braid, a fur-trimmed coat and a headdress. The work is set in a moulded, gilded wooden frame. Based in Constantinople from 1699 onwards with the Marquis Charles de Ferriol d’Argental, the artist was appointed ‘Ordinary Painter to the King in the Levant’ in 1725 and was renowned for his portraits of the Ottoman Empire under Ahmed III.