Diplomatic communication utilized language, symbols, and material objects as tools to reveal their policy-making and agendas in transcultural encounters during the early modern era. The research question of this paper is established through two examples from the Habsburg extraordinary ambassador Graf Virmond, delegated to Istanbul after the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1719. First, playing music and displaying the banners during the ambassadorial entrance ceremonies, and second, the seating furniture designated for ambassadors during audience ceremonies. The unifying theme between these seemingly two distinct examples was the conceptual discussion and objections that shaped them, revolving around the "right" claimed by the Habsburg ambassador versus the "favor" shown to him by the Ottomans. Ambassadorial entrance ceremonies represented the highest public visibility of ambassadors, where their relationship to the host empire and their hierarchical position among other diplomats could be observed. While Count Virmond, the Habsburg ambassador, defined the sounding of music and displaying banners as a right, given the confidence derived from the Habsburg victory in the recent Ottoman-Habsburg war, the Ottomans saw this matter just as a preferential treatment, i.e., favor. Similarly, the choice of seating furniture during diplomatic encounters was an essential criterion in defining ambassadors' prestige, status, and honor. According to Ottoman ceremonial regulations and subsequent secondary literature, it was assumed that Muslim diplomats were hosted on sofas while non-Muslim diplomats were seated on stools, following a rule. However, Count Virmond sat on a sofa instead of a stool during his audience at the Topkapi Palace. Just as in the music and banner debate, Count Virmond, asserting his prestige and precedence, presented this situation as a matter of right. In contrast, Ottoman sources recorded this matter again as a favor to the Habsburg ambassador. This paper examines the material cultural hierarchies of playing music and displaying banners during the entrance ceremonies and the seating hierarchy during the audience ceremonies through the concepts of right and preferential treatment. Thus, it will explore how intentional miscommunication in diplomatic communication can be addressed and investigate the purposes and intended meanings they produced for both the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. This study, based on Viennese and Ottoman archival sources, will show that in early modern diplomatic encounters between Ottomans and Habsburgs it was not religious identities but political interests that determined their policies, and it will answer questions about the motives behind such efforts to impede or achieve the formation of diplomatic norms.