The ghostly figure in the background of the painting in Austria represents the clay effigy of a Turk's head, an object that, although already decapitated, was knocked off its pedestal. This description from a Habsburg emissary of an Ottoman military commander suggests how Turks were viewed by the Austrians: “A thick bodied eunuch with sallow complexion, he had, 'a sour look, scowling eyes, broad shoulders that stuck up, from which his head extruded as from a valley. With two teeth like boars' tusks dominating his mouth [and] his voice, hoarse. . . he was the Fourth Fury.”

DEFINE: The Habsburg emissary's caricature illustrates how propaganda dehumanized the enemy by portraying a Turk as a Fury-like creature.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 345