Ottoman women and daily life
For the harems women, whose daily recreational pursuits were largely confined to conversation, embroidery, drinking coffee and smoking pipes, receiving guests and holding musical gatherings were occasions that added colour to their lives. In the palace harem there were orchestras and groups of dancers consisting of female slaves, and the female musicians were taught by the most eminent teachers of the time. Singing and playing music was one of the most popular pursuits of women at the palace and the upper echelons of society.
Ottoman women had limited opportunities for activities outside the home. The upper-class women rarely went shopping, most of their needs being met by servants or peddler women. Wedding celebrations and feasts, visits to holy tombs and sufi lodges, and friends and relatives, social gatherings known as 'helva nights', Mevlit ceremonies, weekly visits to the public baths, and above all picnics and country excursions in spring and summer were events that took women out of their homes. Western men, who had to make do with second-hand accounts of Ottoman harem life, only had the opportunity to see these women for themselves when they were travelling from place to place, shopping in the company of eunuchs, or enjoying country outings.
The most popular excursion places were Kağıthane on the Golden Horn and Göksu and Küçüksu on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. Pleasing scenes of women in gauzy yashmaks and colourful outer robes promenading in their carriages, strolling in meadows, or being rowed along in graceful caiques, lacy sunshades in hand, were a favourite topic for western painters.