TATIKIAN, Boğos. - Lot 171

TATIKIAN, Boğos. [Figures and costumes of the Levant]. Smyrna, B. Tatikian, (ca 1850). Small folio (33 x 23 cm), 76 plates. Slightly later green half-basane, spine ribbed, gilt title (spine faded with lack of leather, rubbing, leaves very slightly oxidized). Exceptional and extremely rare collection of 76 lithographs in black, by Boğos Tatikian, Ottoman painter and printer of Armenian origin. All finely colored at the time, they illustrate costumed figures of mid-19th-century Levantines, particularly from Smyrna: Armenians, Turks, Greeks, Persians, Jews or Egyptians... sometimes working in various trades or in interior scenes of daily life... The figures are framed with a lithographed title and the signature Lit. or lith. Tatikian; some are numbered in brown ink in the lower right-hand corner (sometimes cut short, probably by the bookbinder). Although these lithographs are sometimes found individually, it is almost impossible to find such a large and complete suite. No copy in CCFr. Only 2 records in WorldCat (Boston, which has only 21 plates, and Berlin, which seems to list only Turkish figures). One of the few lithographed suites made in the Orient at this time. The vivid, fine coloring stands out from the heavier colors we may have come across, and leaves an impression of reality. What's more, the faces are not at all stereotyped and appear to have been drawn from life. Boğos Tatikian, who was born in 1820 but whose date of death is unknown, was an Ottoman painter, lithographer and printer of Armenian origin and culture. One of the leading figures in Smyrna's artistic life in the 19th century and one of the pioneers of Ottoman lithography, he founded an active workshop in the 1850s, which also included the Turkish city's first photographic studio. The Tatikian printing house, renowned for its multilingual prints, remained in business until the early 20th century and contributed to the distribution of publications about Smyrna. Wet stamp of a foreign library on verso of plates. Missing from Colas. Absent from the Milli Kütüphane of Ankara. ARMENIA. TURKEY. IZMIR.