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A Series of Eight Views Forming a Panorama of the Celebrated City of Constantinople and its Environs, Taken from the Town of Galata,
by Henry Aston Barker[1]
Published: 1 January 1813 , London
Formats: Aquatint, Etching, Hand-Colouring, View
Creator: Richard Sawyer, Charles Tomkins, Frederick Christian Lewis, George Robert Lewis, Henry Aston Barker
Copyright: © © Public Domain
For 18th-century Britons, Constantinople, now Istanbul, was perceived as a city of charm, exoticism and historical pedigree. In 1798, British interest in the city increased dramatically when the nation joined forces with the Ottoman Empire against Napoleon. Being the capital of that Empire, Constantinople featured heavily in British news reports of the time.
These brilliantly coloured and highly detailed aquatints depict Constantinople in 8 consecutive plates to form one wide-angled view. It is an adapted reproduction of an enormous 360 degree painting called a panorama which was installed in London’s Leicester Square between 1801 and 1802. [2]
Its creator, Henry Aston Barker (1774-1856), spent months in Constantinople collecting sketches and studies before his drawings were translated into two paintings produced in collaboration with his father Robert Barker. When the painting reproduced in Palser’s aquatints was finished it measured 10,000 square feet, and was displayed in the lower circle of Robert Barker’s celebrated ‘Panorama’. This was a purpose-built cylindrical building in the heart of Soho where spectators could enjoy the experience of being enveloped in a massive all-embracing view. Visitors were given a circular orientation key diagram to the panorama painting to identify key signs and locations. These printed diagrams, rendered in anamorphic perspective, also served as souvenirs of the experience.
Henry Barker arrived in Constantinople in August 1799 and chose the top of the Galata Tower, on the European side of the Bosphorous, as his viewpoint for the panorama. From there most of the city’s cultural, historic and military sites could be seen. Beyond a swathe of terracotta tiled roofs and the turquoise Strait, famous buildings like Hagia Sophia, the Sublime Porte, and the Sultan’s palaces come into view. Tiny details like a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer from a minaret can be seen in plate six, as well figures walking the streets in Turkish and European dress (plates five and six). Barker also made sure to include places of public curiosity, like the Seraglio, where it was reported that hundreds of the Sultan’s harem lived in seclusion guarded by a troop of black and white eunuchs.
While in Constantinople, Henry Aston also produced drawings for a second view of the city, this time from the Tower of Leander, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, to be displayed in the upper circle of the Panorama. The exhibitions of the two paintings overlapped for several months from 1801 to 1802.
As Denise Blake Oleksijczuk has studied, British audiences were thrilled to have such a vivid encounter between two recently allied nations staged before them. Standing before the panorama, they were able to compare London to the Ottoman capital and to compare the Asian and European aspects of it.
[1] Henry Aston Barker (1774 – 19 July 1856) was a Scottish landscape and panorama painter and exhibitor, the son of Robert Barker whose business he continued.
Barker was born in Glasgow, the younger son of Robert Barker, the panoramic painter, whom he assisted as a boy. At the age of twelve he was set to work making outlines of the city of Edinburgh from the top of the Calton Hill Observatory, and a few years later made the drawings for the view of London from Albion Mills. He later made etchings after these drawings.
In 1788 Barker moved to London with his father, and soon afterwards became a pupil at the Royal Academy. He continued to be his father's chief assistant in the panoramas till the latter's death in 1806, when, as executor, he took over the business, and carried on the exhibitions for 20 years with great success.
He frequently travelled in the course of his work, and in August 1799 left England for Turkey, to make drawings for a panorama of Constantinople. At Palermo, he called on Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador to the court of Naples, who introduced him to Lord Nelson, who, he wrote, "took me by the hand and said he was indebted to me for keeping up the fame of his victory in the Battle of the Nile for a year longer than it would have lasted in the public estimation" (Barker's memoranda). The panorama of Constantinople was exhibited in 1802, and the drawings were engraved and published in four plates.
In 1801, Barker went to Copenhagen to make drawings for a picture of the battle, and while there he was again received by Nelson. In May 1802, during the Peace of Amiens, he went to Paris and made drawings for a panorama of the city. After this many other panoramas were exhibited, the later ones being chiefly from drawings by John Burford, who shared with Barker the property in a panorama in the Strand, purchased in 1816 from his brother, Thomas Edward. Barker, however, still travelled from time to time, and visited, among other places, Malta, where he made drawings of the port, exhibited in 1810 and 1812; Venice, of which a panorama was exhibited in 1819; and Elba, where he made the acquaintance of Napoleon.
After the Battle of Waterloo, Barker visited the field, and went to Paris, where he obtained from the officers at headquarters all necessary information on the subject of the battle. A series of eight etchings by John Burnett from Barker's original sketches of the battlefield was published, as were also his drawings of Gibraltar. His last grand panorama, exhibited in 1822, showed the coronation procession of George IV. Of all the panoramas exhibited, that of the battle of Waterloo was the most successful and lucrative. By the exhibition of this picture Barker realised no less than £10,000.
In about 1802 he married the eldest of the six daughters of Rear Admiral William Bligh, who commanded the Bounty at the time of the celebrated mutiny. By her Barker left two sons and two daughters. In 1826 he transferred the management of both the panoramas to John and Robert Burford, and went to live first at Cheam, in Surrey, and then near Bristol.
Barker died on 19 July 1856 at Bitton near Bristol. A list of most of the panoramas painted and exhibited by Henry and Robert Barker was published in The Art Journal (1857, p. 47). His brother, Thomas Edward Barker, although not an artist, was also involved in running the family business, but later set up a rival panorama exhibition with the painter Ramsay Richard Reinagle at 168/9 The Strand, London.
[2] The Royal Strand Theatre was located in the Strand in the City of Westminster. The theatre was built on the site of a panorama in 1832, and in 1882 was rebuilt by the prolific theatre architect Charles J. Phipps. It was demolished in 1905 to make way for Aldwych tube station.
[2] The Royal Strand Theatre was located in the Strand in the City of Westminster. The theatre was built on the site of a panorama in 1832, and in 1882 was rebuilt by the prolific theatre architect Charles J. Phipps. It was demolished in 1905 to make way for Aldwych tube station.