Victorian Turkish Baths Picture of the Month for November 2013
Le Hammam, Paris:
a card from the late 1870s
This trade card, 115x80mm, illustrated on its reverse in a somewhat unexpected style, is from Le Hammam, Paris, and probably dates from around the time when the baths opened in 1876.
Photo: courtesy Nebahat Avcıoğlu
Not only was this a Victorian Turkish bath rather than an Islamic hammam, but as Nebahat Avcıoğlu convincingly shows in her illustrated account of the bath, 'From The Hammam to Le Hammam', in Turquerie and the politics of representation, 1728–1876 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), the building was much influenced by baths in Britain, and especially by Urquhart’s Hammam at 76 Jermyn Street. Her photograph shows all that remains today, the interior having been converted into offices.
The card is from the collection of the Victorian Turkish Baths Project
This page last updated 01 January 2023
Nebahat Avcıoğlu, for telling me about these baths, and for her photo showing the outside today
Victorian Turkish Baths: their origin, development, and gradual decline
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