A Rare Ottoman Battle Standard (Tuğ), Turkey Or Balkans, 17th Century

Taken as booty on the battlefield, siege of Vienna, 1683

House of the Duchy of Baden

Sotheby’s Amsterdam, Property of a Princely Family, 19 December 2006, lot 409

Philippe Missillier Collection no.10C

A tuğ standard is a type of traditional standard that consists of a wooden pole to which dyed horse or yak tail hair is attached. Its use on the Eurasian steppe is attested from as early as the fourteenth century but is likely much older. During the early modern period, the armies of the Ottoman empire also made use of the tuğ standard as a marker of rank, which was indicated by the number of tuğ placed outside the holder’s tent. The Sultan for instance had up to nine horsetail standards. (Holger Schuckelt (ed.), The Turkish Chamber: Oriental Splendour in the Dresden Armoury, Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2010, p.71). Surviving tuğ, including the present example, form part of the booty (Turkenbeute) taken in the Turkish wars. The present standard is a rare survival of such standards captured during the 1683 Siege of Vienna. 

A tuğ in Karlsruhe came from the Türkische Cammer of Markgrafen (Margrave) Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden-Baden (1655-1707). (Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, inv. no.D 30; see Ernst Petrasch et al, Die Karlsruher Turkenbeute, Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1991, pp.77-78, no.17).

Another tuğ likely looted during the 1683 Siege of Vienna is in the National Museum of Denmark (inv. No.Mb 2, Kjeld von Folsach et al., Fighting, Hunting, Impressing: Arms and Armour from the Islamic World 1500-1850, Copenhagen: David Collection, 2021, p.110) and maintains its original tombak finial. Two further tuğ standards were captured by the later Ferdinand II of Austria, in 1556 during a campaign against Ottoman Hungary (W. Boeheim, Handbuch der Waffenkunde, Leipzig, 1890, p.511).