"Elisa[*], my beloved wife, it is thanks to you that I found the strength to live in Istanbul. If you had not come earlier and made a circle of friends, and if you had not given me courage, perhaps Istanbul would have continued to be the dream of mysterious colours of which I read in Edmondo d'Amicis' book. I am thinking of the early years when we made a living by painting watercolours, repairing frames and printing photographs... I will never forget Signor Zellich, the owner of Zellich [1] bookshop on Yüksekkaldirim, and his sons, who were so kind in their attentions. We placed my paintings in his large window and priced them at one lira each. Four paintings were sold and he paid me the sums immediately. That was the first money I earned in Istanbul." Fausto Zonaro
[*] Elisabetta Pante, his wife and former pupil.
Mavi Boncuk |
Zonaro was born on 18 September 1854, the son of a middle-class family in Masi in the district of Padua, and had he not shown artistic promise as a child, would have been apprenticed into his father's bricklaying trade. He was fortunate to attend a technical school near his hometown, and was later sponsored by a local noblewoman to attend the Accademia Di Belle Arti G. B. Cignaroli in Verona for his artistic training.
After graduation, Zonaro moved to Venice where he opened his own studio on the Grand Canal. He developed a fine reputation for picturesque views and genre scenes which was bolstered by ducal patronage. Despite his commercial success, Zonaro grew dissatisfied by the late 1880s with his lack of artistic growth and sought ways to distinguish himself from his contemporaries.
At this juncture, he made two critical decisions-the first was to take a year-long sabbatical in Paris to learn new techniques. Zonaro's works created after this intensive year are considered to be in his mature style, where "the product of his training in French Impressionism, Venetian coloring, and Neapolitan realism were fused."
Zonaro's second life-changing decision was to move to the city of Constantinople. He was fascinated with the exotic vision of this outpost of the Roman and Ottoman Empires, and opened a studio there in 1891. Through his skill and the promotional efforts of his wife and former pupil Elisabetta (Elisa) Pante Zonaro, he was introduced to the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918) who selected him as his court painter in 1896. Zonaro remained at the court until Abdul Hamid II's regime was overthrown in 1909, and returned to Italy thereafter.
Fausto Zonaro first arrived in Istanbul he could not find words to describe the city's beauty, saying that the descriptions by Gautier, Amicis and Loti could not be surpassed.
In 1896 he was appointed painter to the Ottoman sultan. A magnificent book about this Italian painter by Erol Makzume and Osman Öndes has now been published on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition of his work. One of Zonaro's first friends in Istanbul was Director of Customs Mahmud Bey, who helped him when he was having difficulty at the Customs on his arrival in the city, invited him to his office and offered him coffee. This first acquaintance turned into a lasting friendship, and Zonaro was a frequent visitor at Mahmud Bey's house in Salacak. When Illustrierte Zeitung magazine published in Leipzig featured Zonaro's masterpiece Il Banditore, illustrating a scene from the Napoleonic period, on the cover in November 1892, Zonaro became sought after in Istanbul's diplomatic circles and high society.
He began to give art lessons to Yusuf Bey of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, Nadine de Rodevich, Countess Vitalis, Maikof, daughter of the Belgian ambassador Mademoiselle Dudzeele, Madame Cropenshi, Baroness Wenspeir and other illustrious figures of the time. In later years his students included such notable Turkish artists as Celal Esad Arseven, Hoca Ali Riza, Sehzade Abdülmecid, Mihri Müsfik and Celile Hanim. He was introduced to Osman Hamdi Bey, founder of Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and was impressed by his kindness, courtesy and culture. The two men became friends and used to go fishing together on the Bosphorus, as Zonaro relates: 'Our boat filled with fish, each weighing three kilos. When Hamdi Bey asked if that was sufficient, I said that I could feed my entire neighbourhood in Taksim with so many fish. That day, after eating our fill with Hamdi Bey, I took the remainder home in a basket and we ate fish for the next week. The Bosphorus had begun to feast me not only with its blue hues, but also with its delicious fish.'
One Friday in 1896 Zonaro watched the Ertugrul cavalry regiment passing over Galata Bridge, and began to visit the same spot every week to sketch the procession. After completing his oil painting based on these sketches, friends suggested that he present it to Sultan Abdülhamid II. The sultan admired the painting so much that he awarded Zonaro the Mecidi Order and appointed him court painter. A year later Zonaro was rewarded for his painting of the Battle of Dömeke in the Turkish-Greek War by being allocated one of the houses for palace officials in Besiktas. Zonaro lived and worked at No 50 Akaretler for the next 12 years, and the house became a gathering place for intellectuals, eminent members of Istanbul society, leaders of its different religious communities and foreign visitors, who came to watch Zonaro at work and converse with him. His visitors included Enver Pasa, Winston Churchill, Ali Sami, Adolphe Thalasso, Sehzade Burhaneddin, Sehzade Abdülmecid, Sevket Cenani, Max Olaf Heckmann, Dr Fritz Fraumberger, Mario Perrone, Attilio Centelli, Emilie Helferich, Dr A Kampf,
Recaizade Ekrem and Osman Hamdi Bey. Zonaro often used to paint in the gardens of Yildiz Palace: 'Yildiz Park always enchanted me with its exquisite beauty, tranquillity and birdsong. I loved to paint there. First I did sketches based on drawings, and then began to paint. Usually Sehzade Burhaneddin Efendi would join me, and we would converse in French as he shyly watched me from a corner beneath his sunshade.' Zonaro was friends with another of the Ottoman princes, Sehzade Abdülmecid, whom he described as 'a gracious man, filled with love of art.' Sehzade Abdülmecid purchased Zonaro's painting entitled The Wildflower for the unprecedented sum of 200 liras, after extracting from him a promise that he would not paint another similar composition. From the time he was appointed court painter, Zonaro desired to paint a portrait of Sultan Abdülhamid II, and the sultan finally agreed to this in 1908. After Abdülhamid was deposed in 1909 Zonaro's close association with the sultan made him persona non grata with the new regime.
In November that year he was called to the palace and told that his position as court painter and his salary were revoked, and that he could only remain in the house on Akaretler on condition he paid rent. Early in the morning on 20 March 1910 two phaetons drew up outside the house. Zonaro, his wife Elisa and their children left the house where they had lived for over 12 years for the last time. Until his death in 1929 Zonaro's love of Istanbul was perhaps accompanied by feelings of bitterness. In his memoirs he wrote, 'Now I yearn for those sorrowful days that pain me to remember. But I was not crushed by those times of sadness, and nor shall I be. I continue to work with all my strength, and with respect and passion for my art. The mystery of the East still holds me in its grasp.
Article by Ömer Faruk Serifoglu, an art historian.
[1] In the first half of the 19th century, the Ottoman state opened its market to world economy and foreign capital. Together with European capital and business, thousands of European immigrant workers began to arrive in Istanbul, the empire's capital, in search of work. A story of Dalmatian Antonio Zelic, who came to Istanbul in 1840, provides a good example of the European immigrant dream-come-true story. After arrival, Zelic found employment at the lithographic print house of Frenchmen Henri Cayol, the first of its kind in the Ottoman Empire. In 1869, he opened his own lithographic print house called "Zellich and Sons" (A. Zellich et fils). His descendants continued his work with great success, and the Zellich Print House, now known as "Zellich's Sons" (Zellich fils), became one of the most renowned in the Empire. The Zellichs won recognition due to the high quality of their products, and, above all, postcards and posters. Their crowning achievement was printing of the Ottoman Turkish Lira banknotes in 1914. The Zellichs received many Ottoman and international awards for their achievements and services, including medals conferred by the Pope, the Persian shah, and the Serbian king. Transfer of technology into the Ottoman state was one of the most important roles of European immigrants. Despite occasional state pressure during the Abdulhamid's reign in particular, the Zellich family was able to develop its business on account of mastering the art of lithography, one of the new technologies imported from the West. However, after the circumstances that had attracted European immigrants changed in the 1920s and 1930s, the Zellich family, following the example of others, gradually abandoned the business and eventually left the city in which it had made its fame.
SOURCE: THE "ZELLICH" PRINT HOUSE IN CONSTANTINOPLE | Article in Knjizevna Smotra 46(3):91-110 · December 2013
See also Mavi Boncuk Posting
AUCTION INFO Estimate $20,000-40,000 | Sold for: $225,150Torre de Leandro / A View of Salacak and Kiz Kulesi [Leander's Tower], Istanbul, Turkey
Signed "F. Zonaro" l.l. | Oil on canvas, 15 3/4 x 26 in. (40.0 x 66.0 cm), framed. Condition: Losses, craquelure, re-stretched.
Provenance: Gift to Georg Ruckmann (1870-1961) of Lübeck, Germany, from a doctor that fled to Turkey before World War I; by family descent to a private New England collection. Ruckmann was an administrator of a hospital in Lübeck.
Scattered paint losses and abrasions to upper right quadrant (sky). Paint losses to lower center on foreground rocks, with losses measuring from approximately 3/8 to 3/4 in. Vertical abrasion or similar to l.r. corner about 2 inches in length. Craquelure occuring mainly across the top half of the composition (in the sky), but also to l.r. corner. Re-stretched on a new stretcher with a label from Rhode Island Picture Frame, Warwick and Wakefield, R.I., affixed to the bottom bar.