Performances by acrobats, singers, dancers, and a tightrope-walker

 

48a

 

47b

These two images depict performances that took place on Friday before and after noon. In the first (47b) we see the sultan and grand vizier in a setting quite similar to that of (40b). They and those around them are watching a young girl about eight years old perform. According to Vehbi, who tells us that she was apprenticed to tightrope-walkers, she was extremely lithe and agile and performed remarkable and amazing feats in which she twisted her body into bizarre shapes. In (48a) Levni has depicted other performances taking place the same day. (According to Vehbi, the sultan did not observe the ones put on in the afternoon.) We see the members of a dance troupe (according to Vehbi there were two) dancing to the accompaniment of musicians. In the upper part of the picture a tightrope-walker strides across the page holding a balancing-pole. To the left, an acrobat mounted on stilts four and a half or five meters high is walking along carrying a pair of swords. (After the Friday prayers on this day there was a game of jereed and a number of other performances for which the grand vizier asked encores. None of these are shown by the artist.)


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