An Ottoman Tombak shield (kalkan) with leather cover, Turkey, second half 17th century

the body of domed circular form with a central boss encircled by twelve minor and major engraved palmette roundels, pierced by rivets with rosette-shaped heads retained on the inside by iron washers with attached loops, the outer edge with lining rivets, felt interior, the leather cover embossed with a radial design, the interior edge threaded with leather strap

ex-European aristocratic collection, taken as booty from the Ottoman army after the second seige of Vienna in 1683

pitting and patination consistent with age, loss to felt interior, abrasions to leather cover, as viewed
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The second siege of Vienna by the Ottoman army in 1683 and the subsequent victory by the European allies is remembered as a crucial turning point in history.  The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople and inheritance of the Byzantine empire in 1453 heralded a period of expansion that reached its height under Sultan Suleyman II ('the Magnificent', see lot 233).  By the seventeenth century it was Grand Vezir Kara Mustafa (c.1634-1683), brother-in-law of the influential Grand Vezir Mehmed Koprulu (1570-1661), who decided to march on the Hapsburg empire once again, wanting nothing less than its capital Vienna.  Against this Ottoman threat, however, the European forces united and after two months of Vienna's daily bombardment, the allied troops arrived on the twelfth of September 1683 and defeated the Ottoman army.

This tombak shield once formed part of the great booty captured after this battle that is now preserved in public and private collections alike.  The shields alone may total some several hundred items.  A comparable example to the present tombak kalkan can be found in the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (see Petrasch, Sänger, Zimmerman & Majer (Eds.) 1991, p.171, pl.117). Further examples are in the Askeri Muzesi, Istanbul.

The survival of the original leather cover is extremely rare. For a related example in the Polish Army Museum Warsaw, see: War and Peace: Ottoman-Polish Relations in the 15th-19th centuries, Istanbul, 1999, fig. 7, p.77.