Osman Hamdi Bey
Described in his obituary as “the most Parisian of Ottomans, and the most Ottoman of Parisians,” Osman Hamdi Bey was born into the highest ranks of the nineteenth-century Ottoman elite as the son of vizier Ibrahim Edhem Pasha. He was educated in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under the French Orientalist painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gustave Boulanger, and afterwards became a key figure in the Hamidian era of Western modernization. Equal parts artist, writer, intellectual, diplomat, statesman, archaeologist, and curator, Osman Hamdi took on numerous roles in his lifetime: as a cosmopolitan but loyal Ottoman royalist, he was employed as a useful mediator or representative for the Ottoman Empire in relations with Western Europeans; as the director of the Imperial Museum (today the Istanbul Archaeology Museums), he made important changes to Ottoman policies around antiquities to prevent historical artifacts from being freely removed by increasingly eager European archaeologists; and as an artist, he is associated with the controversial concept of Ottoman Orientalism. Osman Hamdi’s paintings, which were rarely exhibited in his home country, forewent the titillatingly exoticized angle of his European counterparts, instead using highly polished realism to create grounded depictions of Turkish people and life with specific architectural and decorative details. In this quiet, domestic harem scene, he portrays a modestly dressed young liseuse kneeling on a prayer rug with what appears to be an open Qur’an propped up on a reading table—a very different image of harem activity than those of Osman Hamdi’s Orientalist contemporaries. Behind the girl is a wall with blue-and-white tiles, reminiscent of those seen in situ inside Topkapi Palace, and we can easily imagine this scene taking place somewhere in 19th century Istanbul.
Sources:
Emily Neumeier and Chris Gratien, “Lost and Found: Art, Diplomacy, and the Journey of a Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Painting," Ottoman History Podcast, No. 81 (November 24, 2012). https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2012/11/art-history-osman-hamdi-bey-archaeology.html
Günay Uslu, “II. Classical Antiquities and Ottoman Patrimony, The Muslim Elite and Their Involvement with Classical Civilization,” in Homer, Troy and the Turks (Amsterdam University Press, 2017): 102-108.
Emily M. Weeks, “Lot 62: Osman Hamdi Bey (Turkish, 1842-1910), Young Woman Reading,” in Bonhams’s auction online catalogue. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25444/lot/62/