The Tortoise Trainer: Osman Hamdi Bey’s Silent Rebellion

Doesn’t the idea of someone trying to train tortoises sound strange to you? Imagine it for a moment. You are holding a ney, a drum mallet hangs from your neck, and a few tortoises stand in front of you. You are trying to teach them something, but they are tortoises after all, moving slowly, quietly, almost as if they are testing your patience on purpose.

That is exactly the scene Osman Hamdi Bey gives us in his famous two-version painting, created in 1906 and 1907. But of course, this is not just a painting about tortoises.

It is a layered work about patience, reform, frustration, and the painful slowness of change.

What Do We See In The Painting?

The setting is the upper floor of Bursa’s Green Mosque (Yesil Cami). Osman Hamdi Bey reportedly began working on the painting there, then completed it later in his studio using photographs he had taken. This method, painting from photographic references, was not unusual for major artists of the period.

Bursa’s Green Mosque (Yesil Cami)

The walls are worn and tired. Plaster is falling away, tiles are displaced, and the space feels neglected. The atmosphere matters because this is not a polished ceremonial interior. It is a place marked by time, fatigue, and decline.

Above the door, on the arched panel, there is an inscription: "Sifau'l kulub likau'l mahbub", which can be translated as "The healing of hearts is reunion with the beloved." In this context, the beloved refers not to an ordinary person, but to the Prophet Muhammad. It is a deeply spiritual phrase.

And yet, the man in the painting does not look spiritually uplifted. He looks tired, burdened, and inwardly strained.

That contrast is one of the reasons the painting feels so powerful.

The Figure In Red: Osman Hamdi Bey Himself

The figure in the painting is widely understood to be Osman Hamdi Bey himself. He is believed to have photographed himself from different angles and used those references while painting the figure. This was also something he did in other works, using his own face and body as a model.

Osman Hamdi Bey

He appears in a red robe, with a beard, wearing a felt headpiece, holding a ney in his hand. Around his neck hangs a nakkare mallet.

The overall look resembles an Ottoman dervish, which immediately gives the scene a symbolic and theatrical quality. He is not simply a man feeding animals. He is staged like a guide, a teacher, a spiritual musician, perhaps even a reformer.

The nakkare itself is a pair of small kettle drums. It is often associated in interpretations of the painting with rhythm, signaling, and attempts to direct the tortoises.

The Green Leaves In Front Of The Tortoises

One of the striking details in the painting is the green leaves placed in front of the tortoises. This opens the door to one of the most interesting folklore-like details often associated with the image.

According to a commonly repeated account, tortoises were once fed tulip bulbs. They did not truly eat them in the usual way, but chewed and spat them out, and their saliva was believed to affect the bulbs, supposedly contributing to unusual tulip forms, including the famous so-called "reverse tulips."

Whether one takes this literally or as part of a broader Ottoman anecdotal tradition, the detail fits the painting’s world very well. It adds another layer of cultural memory to an image that already carries metaphorical weight.

There is also another curious tradition often mentioned in relation to Ottoman court life. On special occasions, candles were said to be attached to the backs of tortoises, and the animals were allowed to move through palace gardens during festivities, almost like living lanterns. It is both charming and slightly surreal, which makes it feel perfectly at home next to a painting like this.

Where Did The Idea Come From?

This part is debated, and that is what makes it even more interesting. There are two major theories about the origin of the painting’s concept.

One theory says Osman Hamdi Bey may have been inspired by an 1869 issue of the French magazine Le Tour du Monde, a publication he reportedly admired. In that issue, there was an article and illustration about Japanese tortoise trainers. The engraving supposedly showed a trainer using a drum to line up tortoises and direct them onto a table. It is easy to see how such an image could have stayed in the mind of a painter as visually imaginative as Osman Hamdi Bey.

Charmeur De Tortues - 1869 

The second theory is more local and more cinematic. It suggests that while Osman Hamdi Bey was serving as director of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, he went down one day to the museum’s back garden and saw a real tortoise trainer patiently handling tortoises that were part of the museum grounds. The story claims he was deeply impressed by the scene, and that this moment may have planted the seed for the painting.

Which one is true? Maybe one of them. Maybe both. The uncertainty itself suits the painting, because the work has always lived somewhere between observation, memory, and allegory.

Why Osman Hamdi Bey Matters So Much

To understand the painting’s deeper meaning, you also have to understand who Osman Hamdi Bey was.

He was not just a painter. He was one of the most important cultural figures of the late Ottoman period, a central figure in the development of museum work, archaeology, and art education in the empire. He held major institutional roles, including the leadership of what became the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, and played a foundational role in organizing and classifying collections in a more systematic way.

He was also a key force behind major cultural institutions and reforms. He studied in Paris, knew the intellectual climate of Europe firsthand, and returned with a serious commitment to modernization in his own country.

In 1887, the excavations he led brought international attention, especially with the discovery of the famous Alexander Sarcophagus. By then, he was already much more than an artist. He was a reform-minded intellectual working inside institutions, trying to build durable structures in a difficult environment.

That matters because once you know this, The Tortoise Trainer stops being only a curious oriental scene and starts looking like something far more personal.

The Real Meaning Of The Painting

This is where the painting becomes truly unforgettable.

At its core, The Tortoise Trainer is a metaphor, and a painful one. Many interpretations see the red-robed figure as Osman Hamdi Bey himself, trying with patience, rhythm, and persistence to guide a society or system that moves too slowly, resists change, and barely responds.

In this reading, the tortoises represent a world that is heavy-shelled, cautious, inert, and difficult to transform. The trainer plays, waits, signals, and endures, but the progress remains slow. The image becomes a quiet portrait of reformist frustration.

Another interpretation is more institutional and more direct. Osman Hamdi Bey, who founded and ran major institutions, may be depicting himself as the trainer while the tortoises stand for subordinates or bureaucratic structures that do not adapt to his working style and vision. In this reading, the painting becomes a critique of administrative inertia.

Both interpretations share the same emotional center: effort without immediate response.

Think about the scene again. You are holding the ney, the nakkare is there, the leaves are in place, the setting is ready, and still the creatures in front of you continue at their own pace, almost indifferent to your intention. That is not just a visual joke. That is a portrait of what it feels like to try to change a world that does not want to be hurried.

A Final Thought

The Tortoise Trainer is more than a painting. It is the inner cry of an intellectual of his era.

In a ruined mosque interior, beneath an inscription about the healing of hearts through reunion with the beloved, a tired man plays music to tortoises. The image is funny at first glance, but the longer you stay with it, the sadder and sharper it becomes.

Maybe the "beloved" Osman Hamdi Bey was truly seeking was not only spiritual. Maybe it was also the dream of a modern, educated, forward-moving society.

And maybe reaching that beloved felt harder than teaching tortoises to keep rhythm.

Osman Hamdi Bey painted the subject twice, in 1906 and 1907. A striking detail often noted is that the original painting was found in his studio after his death in Istanbul on 24 February 1910.

Perhaps until his final days, he was still trying to say something through this image, still trying to crack those thick shells.

But the tortoises kept moving, slowly, in their own time.