This Week in La Gazette Drouot : When Dubufe Painted His Friend Dauzats as an Ottoman Pascha

With this spectacular Portrait of Adrien Dauzats Wearing a Turban —which has resurfaced today as part of the sale of a collection from Nice— Claude-Marie Dubufe presents one of the most beautiful paintings in the Orientalist style that took the Parisian art world by storm around 1830. It must be said that he spared no effort in depicting the richness of the model’s attire, starting with the voluminous Turkish-style turban, from which rows of pompoms cascade, and the black-and-green kaftan streaked with white draped over the shoulder. 
 

This brilliant work is part of a series of portraits in Ottoman inspired attire launched in response to the Greek War of Independence—Greece was then under Ottoman rule—a theme that would flourish in the early years of the July Monarchy. Fashion would eventually embrace this trend, as evidenced by the depictions of turbaned female figures from the Romantic era.