Dervish

On the back of this canvas a Dutch owner wrote Derweys of Turxen Heilige, a dervish or Turkish holy man. The tall honey-coloured felt hat and the long white skirt show which dervishes he belongs to, the Mevlevi, the ones who turn. In their teaching the dress itself spoke of burial. The hat, the sikke, stood for a tombstone, and the black cloak a dervish wore as he entered stood for the grave. Before the turning began he let the cloak fall, and what remained, the white robe called the tennure, stood for the shroud.

This dervish has already put his cloak aside. He is barefoot on a wooden floor, his right arm raised and his left hand at his chest, and the hem of his robe is beginning to swing out around him. The number 19 is painted in the lower corner.