The Ottoman incense burner that was put behind the glass in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art was actually born in a far-away country. The object was started its life with a different mission and as a different object. The incense burner was actually consists of a different elements. It was a very beautiful Ming blue-and-white-ceramic garden-seat[1], that was produced in China. The ceramic garden-seat was not know the exact time of the birth date but the museum specialists were dated it to the late sixteenth century.[2]

In the first years of the seventeenth century, the ceramic garden-seat and his other blue-and-white ceramic friends were put into boxes. The ceramic objects were send to Constantinople. After the very frightening (because the garden-seat heard that there were lot of ceramics which can broke in that kind of journeys) and long journey they reached to Constantinople.

After a few days spending time in the market place, blue-and-white ceramic garden-seat was load to a carriage by the sale man and went to the Topkapı Palace, which is still standing on the first hill on Istanbul. There was a black man waiting for to see new Chinese ceramics in the first courtyard of the Topkapı Palace. He was the Chief of the Black Eunuchs whose name was Mustafa Agha and he was very much interested in collecting Chinese ceramics.[3] His position in the Imperial Palace gave him a chance to see and buy beautiful Chinese ceramics. Mustafa Agha saw the blue-and-white-ceramic garden-seat and looked at carefully; there were dragons, flames, clouds, lotus flowers, and horses on the surface of the object.[4] It was well-decorated object and he bought it after a short bargain. Mustafa Agha kept the garden-seat in his room as a stool for several months. However, on 22November 1617 Mustafa Agha received the bad news, his dear Sultan Ahmed Khan was died at the age of twenty seven. When Sultan Ahmed I was buried in his mausoleum near by the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Mustafa Agha decided to convert the garden-seat into something that beneficial for his Sultan. Ming blue-and-white-ceramic garden-seat given to an Ottoman craftsman and became a devşirme (devshirmeh) object like Mustada Agha and most of the members of the Ottoman Palace. An Ottoman craftsman took the ceramic garden-seat and turned into an incense burner (buhurdan) (Fig. 1). He covered garden-seat ceramic with the gilt-silver base and openwork dome. The Craftsman made two holes over to the ceramic garden-seat and decorated them with openwork metals so smoke can pass out. The most interesting addition was a new golden flower images, which was painted on the dragons and horses (Fig. 2). Islam religion was not a big fan of the human and animal images. Although there were some exceptions, Muslim craftsman generally focuses on flower and geometric patterns. In this incense burner case, it seems like the craftsman tried to make incense burner more appropriate for a mausoleum context.[5] Thus, the craftsman tried to reduce the impact and visibility of animal figures. By order of Mustafa Agha, the craftsman also added an inscription on to incense burner which shows that the buhurdan (incense burner) was a gift to Sultan Ahmed Khan from the Pilgrim Mustafa Agha in 1617/18. [6]

Mustafa Agha cannot exactly describe as a devshirmeh but he was a man whose function was changed. He was created an object that its function has changed and endowed to Sultan Ahmed I’s mausoleum. Mustafa Agha tried to communicate with his dear Sultan Ahmed I with the modified incence burner (buhurdan).  The Chief of the Black Eunuch wanted to find a way to serve to the Sultan even after both of them died. The incense burner was served for more than three hundred years like a loyal servant (kul).

After the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the old and valuable Ottoman objects were collect and some of them constitute the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. The Mustafa Agha’s converted incense burner was one of its kinds in terms of size and style within the others Ottoman incense burners.  The museum specialists immediately took it from the Ahmed I’s mausoleum and put into the museum that is today known as the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. Today, the incense burner is seen by hundreds of people in each day and presents the complex story of an ordinary object.