Guide
The Hanım Sultanlar Museum in Üsküdar tells the story of Ottoman royal women through costume, and it grew out of local history rather than a collection someone bought. Üsküdar was one of the bilad-ı selase, the three settlements outside İstanbul proper — the others being Galata and Eyüp — and each of them was well developed in trade, law, culture, art and pious foundations. Ottoman royal women took a particular interest in Üsküdar because of that standing, and over several centuries they endowed mosques and fountains that still stand in many of its quarters.
Following that endowed heritage left the municipality with a considerable body of historical material about the women themselves, and the museum is the attempt to turn it into something you can look at. An earlier project with the Beylerbeyi Sabancı Finishing Institute had produced the katip and katibe dolls that serve as emblems of Üsküdar; the response to those led to a second collection made the same way, this time of the royal women.
The research came first. An academic committee chaired by Yrd. Doç. Selman Can of Marmara University's art history department established what was worn in the Ottoman harem between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and only then did the making begin. Authentic fabrics were woven specially for the project, and a workshop team of eight spent two months on the accessories, the tailoring and the jewellery. The figures themselves were built by the kitre doll method still practised in Anatolia, chosen because it lasts.
Each figure is modelled on a royal woman who left a mark on Üsküdar, dressed in a way consistent with her historical character, so that the collection ends up showing both palace life and everyday Ottoman dress. Later additions widened the selection enough that the municipality turned it into a permanent museum.
