Antoine-Léon Morel-Fatio (1810-1871)

Morel-Fatio had already travelled extensively throughout France depicting port towns and ships before being appointed curator of Marine Paintings at the Louvre in 1852. The painter's technical precision and realism made him the perfect chronicler of the naval expeditions of his time and he was appointed official painter to France in 1854. His works were well known to the French public, not only from his contributions to the Salon (where he exhibited from 1833 onwards) but from the engravings done of his drawings and paintings and their use as illustrations in such well-known publications as l'Illustration and the Magasin Pittoresque. The Orient had had a hold on the French imagination since the Crusades. Although the thirst for all things oriental continued into the 20th Century, orientalism reached its apogée in the 19th Century with the rise of tourism to the East and the opening of the Suez Canal. These four scenes by Morel-Fatio are perhaps best considered as discreet tributes to France's 'mission civilisatrice', postcards from the watery edges of an empire.

细节

Antoine-Léon Morel-Fatio (1810-1871)

The Golden Horn with The Suleimaniye and The Fatih Mosques, Constantinople

signed 'Morel-Fatio'; oil on canvas
18¼ x 48½in. (46.3 x 123.2cm.)

拍品专文

Constantinople, the most ancient capital of the Byzantine and subsequently the Ottoman Empire was also the capital of the Christian Orient. The painting, which achieves an admirable balance by playing the masts of the ships off against the minarets, and vice versa, shows the Golden Horn with the Suleimaniye Mosque in the foreground and the Fatih Mosque beyond.