Turks, from a set of costume plates of different nations
ca. 1600–40
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 3 1/16 × 4 3/16 in. (7.8 × 10.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960
Accession Number
60.621.14(3)
Art Historical Context
Johann Wilhelm Baur’s *Turks* belongs to a series of small etchings depicting costumes from various nations, created between roughly 1600 and 1640. Measuring just over three by four inches, the print captures the distinctive dress of Ottoman figures with crisp, economical lines typical of the etching technique. Baur, a German artist active in the early seventeenth century, used this medium to produce affordable, widely distributable images that satisfied a growing European curiosity about foreign lands and peoples. Costume plates like this one served both as visual records and as sources of i...
About the Artist
Johann Wilhelm Baur · 1607–1642
Johann Wilhelm Baur was a German draughtsman, painter, and printmaker who came of age in the early seventeenth century and built his reputation through the production of finely detailed illustrations and miniatures. Though the precise details of his training remain incompletely documented, Baur developed his skills in the tradition of German and Northern European graphic art, showing influences fr...