PREZIOSI, Amadeo. - Lot 78

PREZIOSI, Amadeo. Stamboul. Souvenir d'Orient. Paris, Lemercier, 1865. In-folio, bistre lithographed title on prepared ground, 28 uncaptioned plates and a table of plates. Publisher's eggplant percale, cold-stamped boards with gilt title on first board (rare and discreet wear). Magnificent and rare suite printed in color of costumes, views and scenes of Istanbul in the mid-19th century. Album of 28 color lithographed plates, based on paintings by Count Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882), son of a Maltese aristocrat ennobled in 1718 by the King of Sicily and considered one of the great Orientalist artists of the 19th century. Second edition. After growing up in Valletta, Amadeo Preziosi went to Paris in 1836, where, inspired by a profound artistic vocation, he left the law to enroll in the Beaux-Arts and embarked on a career as a painter. In 1842, he left for Constantinople, where he settled permanently. A painter attached to the palace under the reign of Abdülhamid II, of his era between the evening of Romanticism and the dawn of Realism, like Brindesi also in Constantinople, he acquired his renown by seeking out the reality of scenes of Eastern Turkish life as perceived by the Western eye. Stamboul is a continuous, teeming film of dervishes and Turkish women, eunuchs and seraglio, Croats, Jews and Albanians, silk bazaars, confectionery and coffee shops, the sultan and the Bosphorus. His studio quickly became a landmark, and commissions poured in from all over Europe. He died in 1882 while hunting. The lithographs from his paintings were collected in two albums: Stamboul: Recollections of Eastern Life (1858) and Stamboul: Souvenir d'Orient (1858-1861). Blackmer, 1353. Atabey, 999 and Colas, 2422 (for E.O.). [Turkey - Istanbul].