Well beyond their function as utilitarian furnishings, cradles of the Ottoman elite were built for display in extravagant public processions throughout urban settings. The cradle’s construction facilitated these purposes as it could simultaneously function as both a crib and a baby carrier during these festive events. The rounded feet of the cradle enabled a nurse or mother to rock the baby to sleep. Meanwhile the carved wooden bar along the top length offered an attractive means to stabilize the cradle for transport. Ivory inlays of floral vines and stars adorn the surface, deftly framing the carved latticework piercing the wooden structure. Five red satin pillows cushioned the infant for comfort. The current cushions probably replaced the originals as this cradle remained in use by the same family well into the twentieth century. The cradle belonged to a family of the military-bureaucratic elite, based on the insignia emblazoned on one end with an Ottoman tuğra. Though the emblem has some similarities to that of Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909), several key features differ. The unusual inclusion of both trumpets and the drum at its center have close associations with late Ottoman military bands, possibly suggesting the family’s professional affiliation.

The birth of a child warranted the most luxurious furnishings and linens an Ottoman family could afford. During her travels to Istanbul, the writer Julia Pardoe (d. 1862) recorded some of the opulent materials that would swathe a newborn of the Ottoman elite around the time of this cradle’s creation. She paid a house visit to the wife of a kadi (judge) in Bursa shortly before 1837. Arriving just after the wife gave birth, she noted how the infant laid “upon a cushion of white satin richly embroidered with colored silks, and trimmed like the sheet; and was itself a mass of gold brocade and diamonds.” Some scholars relate that babies would first lay on their mother’s bed (gelinlik yatağı) for a full week before being transferred to the cradle gifted by their maternal grandmother. Several paintings, including LACMA’s Ottoman birth scene (M.85.237.100), also depict a cradle prepared for the arrival of the child lined with the textiles Pardoe describes. Once the infant survived their critical first weeks, Ottoman urbanites would celebrate the child’s 40th day with festive processions. During this event, the parade accompanied the new mother and the infant in-cradle on their first visit to the hammam for a ceremonial bath. After these ritual processions, many Ottoman cradles continued to remain in use, as was the case with this work, which served future generations of the family from Alexandria and Istanbul.

As elaborate as cradle processions could seem to travelers and city inhabitants, they paled in comparison to the ritual processions of the royal family. The palace would prepare three grand processions to ring in the birth of a new child. Each one featured a separate cradle gifted from a different member of the household: one was prepared for the birth itself by chamberlain of the imperial treasury (hazine-i hümayun kahyası) and inlaid with silver from the royal mint; another came from the valide (queen mother) with a quilt and coverlet; the final cradle was sent from the grand vizier with jewels. In each case, the procession would parade the cradle throughout the neighborhoods of the capital, following the Divan Yolu (ceremonial way) from the Old Palace to the imperial harem of Topkapı Palace.