Lot 78

Amadeo, 5th Count Preziosi, came from one of the foremost families of the Roman Catholic Maltese nobility, but found fame in Muslim Turkey as an artist who depicted with colour and panache the life and landscape of Istanbul, in all its cosmopolitan variety. Instead of the legal career that his father had envisaged for him, Preziosi studied art in Paris, and from 1842 was based in Istanbul until his death forty years later. Here he established a very productive studio, painting picturesque views of the city for a wide variety of European visitors. His representations of the capital of the Ottoman Empire were bought by royal, aristocratic and middle-class tourists, who carried them home as vivid reminders of a society that was at the same time both alien and familiar. These examples of the artist’s mature work demonstrate his skill in combining an acute observation of local customs with a confident grasp of the complex topography of Istanbul and the Bosphorus.

Count Amadeo Preziosi (Maltese, 1816-1882)

A Bazaar in Constantinople

Details

Count Amadeo Preziosi (Maltese, 1816-1882)
A Bazaar in Constantinople
signed 'Preziosi.' (lower right)
pencil, chalk and watercolour, heightened with white, on paper
15 ¼ x 23 ½ in. (38.7 x 59.7 cm.)

Provenance

Baron Felix Meyendorff and his wife Olga Gortschakow, Weimar.
And thence by descent to his son Baron Alexander Meyendorff, London.
with Mr Payne, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Brought to you by

Clare Keiller

ckeiller@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2729

Lot Essay

This sketch shows the entrance to a market in Istanbul. The vigorous draughtsmanship and rapid depiction of detail suggests that it was an on-the-spot sketch, from which a more finished and highly-coloured version would be prepared back in the studio. Many markets in rural Turkey still have the same atmosphere, despite the difference in costume, with a profusion of goods, shops with drop-down shutters, and security at night provided by the massive gateways and walls.
We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn and Charles Newton for their assistance in cataloguing the present lot.

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