The Inside of a Mosque, the Dervishes Dancing (Aubry de La Mottraye's "Travels throughout Europe, Asia and into Part of Africa...," London, 1724, vol. I, pl. 16)

The Inside of a Mosque, the Dervishes Dancing (Aubry de La Mottraye's "Travels throughout Europe, Asia and into Part of Africa...," London, 1724, vol. I, pl. 16) is an intricate etching and engraving executed by William Hogarth around 1723-1724. This detailed print served a commercial function, acting as plate 16 for the first volume of Aubry de La Mottraye's expansive travelogue. During this formative period of his career, Hogarth frequently produced illustrative prints for books, specializing in providing visual documentation for historical, religious, and geographical texts published in London.

The scene captures a highly specific cross-cultural encounter: a religious ceremony involving Men engaged in the ritual Dancing of Dervishes, or Sufi practitioners, within the interior of a Mosque. The composition effectively balances detailed architectural elements characteristic of Islamic religious spaces with the energy of the performance. This illustration provided 18th-century European readers a visual interpretation of customs in the Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions, often documenting practices that were exoticized or sensationalized in the accompanying travel narratives.

As a published illustration, this specific image, like many Hogarth prints from this period, offers valuable insight into the requirements of documentary graphic art of the era. Hogarth’s precise draftsmanship applied to the task of historical documentation is evident in the work. Classified simply as a print, this piece demonstrating the artist's early technical proficiency in etching and engraving is held in the comprehensive collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work, now often accessible through public domain resources, provides a foundational example of Hogarth's output before his rise to fame as a master of satirical narrative painting.