White flowers in a vase

Along with Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910) and Suleyman Seyyid (1842-1913), Seker Ahmet Pasha studied in Europe, was a founding figure of Modern Turkish Painting and one of the first to introduce Western painterly techniques in late Ottoman art. He was sent to Paris by Sultan Abdulaziz, a great admirer of the West, to work with Jean-Léon Gérome and Gustave Boulanger, the two most prominent exponents of French academic painting. In 1871 Ahmet Pasha returned to Istanbul where he organized the one of the first modern paintings exhibitions, eleven years before the founding of the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts by Osman Hamdi Bey. Works by Ahmet Pasha are extremely rare on the market and these two exquisite still lifes epitomize Ahmet Pasha at the height of his powers.