(Istanbul 1842–1910)
Resting at a Caravanserai - Bulgaria, signed, dated O. Hamdy. 1906, watercolour and oil on paper, 17 x 12.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
European Private Collection.

Enclosed:
Halt of caravaniers at a Serail, Bulgaria, by William Henry Motte (1803-1871), after Thomas Allom (1804-1872), stipple and line engraving, 19th Century

The present lot is a 1906 copy of the above-mentioned engraving, painted by Osman Hamdi Bey.

Osman Hamdi Bey was the first Turkish painter to fully embrace the Western style of painting. He was a bureaucrat, archeologist, museum director and one of Orientalism’s most successful painters. He held a prominent position in Turkish cultural life during the second half of the nineteenth century. As the member of an upper-class Ottoman family, he lived a very Western-oriented life. In 1860, he was sent to Paris by his family to continue his education. There, he decided to pursue his interest in painting and studied art under the supervision of the famous French Orientalist painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gustave Boulanger. In 1869, after nine years in Paris, he returned to Istanbul. He was appointed Director of the Imperial Ottoman Museum in 1881, after holding several positions in the Ottoman bureaucracy and founded the Academy of Fine Arts soon thereafter. This still exists in Istanbul today as Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.