A Chaous, a Courier to the Sultan

A chavush, spelled chaous by Europeans, was an Ottoman official who carried the sultan's orders. Chavushes rode out to the provinces with decrees, took messages between high officials and, at court ceremonies, kept order and escorted foreign envoys. The Dutch words on the back of this canvas call him a postlooper, literally a post-runner.

He stands alone in a landscape, full length, a type of official rather than a portrait of any particular man. The canvas is small, 39 centimetres high, one of a set of costume figures that belonged to Cornelis Calkoen, the Dutch ambassador in Istanbul. Calkoen himself was received by Sultan Ahmed III in 1727, at exactly the kind of palace audience where chavushes did this work.