Yale Center for British Art

Creator:: Francis Smith, active 1763–1779, British
Title:: The Kizlar Agha (Chief Black Eunuch, Head Officer of the Palace)
Date:: ca. 1765
Materials & Techniques:: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:: 21 1/2 x 15 1/4 inches (54.6 x 38.7 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1994.18.5
Classification:: Paintings
Collection:: Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:: portrait | turban | banyan | robes | African | interior | black | octagon | gesture | tiles | harem | window | headpiece
Currently On View:: On view
Exhibition History:: In a New Light: 500 Years of British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-04-01 - 2026-01-30)
Publications:: Sesquicentennial compendium celebrating the Knickerbocker Club, 1871-2021, Knickerbocker Club, New York, 2021, p.155, HS2513 .N5 S47 2021 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:: This painting presents the Kizlar Agha, one of the highest-ranking officials in the eighteenth-century Ottoman court, wearing the turban and robes of his office and acting as keeper of the palace harem. Both he and the women were enslaved. The women were not allowed to leave, and the Kizlar Agha’s power was dependent upon his castration and his total loyalty to the sultan. This painting is not a portrait but rather an imagined view that the artist copied from works belonging to a popular genre depicting the diverse members of the Ottoman court. Smith produced at least thirty such images for his patron, Lord Baltimore, who had traveled to Constantinople as a tourist in 1763. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2025
Link:: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:1354