In 2010 the Barakat Trust endowed Aysin Yoltar-Yildirim with a grant to assist her in study and conservation of an important group of endowment deeds belonging to thirteen Ottoman women. This was the subject of a successful exhibition which was set up in the Ankara Museum of Foundations in May 2010 and this was followed up with another exhibition held later that year which showed the conservation process of these manuscripts.
With the help of the Trust Aysin was also able to present a paper on these manuscripts on the 14th International Congress of Turkish Arts held in September 2011.
The endowment deeds which were written and bound in codex format with high quality illustration and binding are actually the only known form of luxury patronage by the same women. These rich women were able to create endowments in their own names whilst their male counterparts were in power. This is a relatively progressive historical phenomenon and one which was actually echoed in the entirety of the Ottoman Empire not just in modern day Turkey.
These deeds were cross sectioned with Ottoman book arts from the late 16th to the 19th centuries and these deeds also show us the changing tastes of luxury book production in illumination, binding and calligraphy.
