Levni and the Surname: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival

Levni's pictorial narrative of the Surname-i Vehbi, poet Vehbi's account of the festival organized in 1720 to commemorate the circumcision of four sons of Sultan Ahmed III, is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of Ottoman art and possibly the last great example of illustrated Islamic manuscript. Preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, the work is illustrated with 137 paintings that re-create the personages, settings, and events of an extraordinarily lively and enchanting age known as the Tulip Period.