Ornament in the shape of Karagoz Shadow Puppet, "Bebe Ruhi" Character

Shadow plays were first performed in the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth century, with the popular form known as Karagöz (Black Eye) developing in the 1600s. These plays were put on mainly in the evenings during Ramadan, the month of fasting, as popular entertainment. Although Karagöz theater was essentially comedic, political satire was an important component; the stories and characters represented a broad cross-section of Ottoman culture in Istanbul. The popularity of shadow plays declined in the twentieth century with the advent of cinema, radio, and television. A single puppeteer assisted by one or two apprentices performed the Karagöz shadow play, moving the puppets behind a screen of white cloth. When the puppeteer pressed the painted, translucent-leather figures to the screen, oil lamps or candles behind them would cast their colorful shadows. The puppets were usually made in three parts—head, body, and feet—and joined together with pieces of gut threaded through holes. The single or double horizontal rods by which they were moved were attached to reinforced socket-like holes in their necks or upper bodies. While performing, the puppeteer, behind the cloth screen, could hear but not see his audience. He would be the voice of each figure regardless of its age, gender, or regional accent and would sing, recite poetry, and improvise all the lines, since there was no written script. The figure represented here, Bebe Ruhi is an eccentric dwarf, usually depicted as a hunchback with a comically long nose. Fidgety, talkative, and boastful, he has a speech impediment that causes him to pronounce r and s as y. He wears a clown hat, a coat, and long boots. This and the four other figures in this group represent major characters in the Karagöz stories. They are considered ornamental replicas, because they lack the holes necessary for the attachment of the puppeteer’s rods, have no moving parts, and are appreciably smaller than authentic puppets, which range in height from twenty-five to thirty-five centimeters.