Description

Original bdg. In publisher's special box. Folio. (33 x 29 cm). In English. 2 volumes set: (240 p., 5 unnumbered folded plates on pages; Second volume is a hard-case including two reprint panoramas and one reprint map: First panorama is a huge hand-coloured drawing shows Ottoman Palace across Sarayburnu; size 28x336 cm; Second panorama is a huge hand-coloured drawing shows Ottoman Palace across Sarayburnu again which is indicating Palace from a different angle; size 28x196 cm; and one map: 'Carta ufwer Orienten Med de Darom kring Grantzande Lander. (Turkey and its around map printed originally in early 18th century), descriptive text surrounding the map, size 65x85 cm. Cornelius Loos in the Ottoman world: Drawings for the King of Sweden, 1710-1711. [with] Panoramas & map [book]. Prep. by Lâle Uluç, David Jones, Klas Kronberg, Ersu Pekin. 2 volumes. [BOXED]. Cornelius Loos was one of the young military officers who followed Karl XII to the Ottoman Empire in 1709. From the royal headquarters in what is at present the republic of Moldova, Loos was sent to Istanbul on the King's orders in 1710. From there his journey was pursued by boat over the Mediterranean to Egypt and he returned by land through Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Konya and Izmir. Loos' mission was to make drawings of the "rarities and monuments" that he would encounter on his journey. Out of the drawings that have survived until today, one is from Palmyra, two from Rhodes and Bodrum and around forty aquarelle tush drawings from Istanbul. It is possible that part of the original drawings were destroyed in the "Skirmish at Bender" in 1713, while other works, due to various reasons, disappeared on their way to Sweden. The conserved drawings are kept at the Swedish National Museum and were exhibited there in 1985. (See catalogue titled "Cornelius Loos. Teckningar från en expedition till Främre Orienten 1719-1711", Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 1985). The drawings represent a unique record of the urban landscape and the monuments in Istanbul in the early 18th century. The collection includes three great panoramas of the city seen from the Topkapi palace to the upper part of the Golden Horn. To the Loos paintings can be added the great Mecca painting brought to Sweden by Mikael Eneman and kept in the Uppsala University Library, and a small group of oil paintings brought back by Loos' travel companion Conrad Sparre, which are also kept in the art collection of Uppsala University. In addition there are travel accounts and correspondence from these journeys. (From the 'SRII's official site, Karin Adahl's project). "In January 1710 the Swedish king Charles XII, in exile in the Ottoman Empire, sent three of his officers on a journey from the royal camp near Bender in Moldova to travel to Constantinople and from there along the Eastern Mediterranean to Egypt. Their mission was 'to view the there existing rarities and monuments, to draw and to measure'. Cornelius Loos, one of the young officers, returned to his king in 1711 with more than 250 drawings. Only forty-nine, kept under the king's bed, survived a skirmish in the camp in 1713, the so called 'kalabalik' at Bender. King Charles had a vision to publish an encyclopaedic work about the Near East, a dream that was lost in the fire in the camp. The drawings were brought to Sweden when the king returned from the Ottoman Empire in 1714. He died in battle in Norway in 1718. Loos' drawings are unique documents of Constanttinople in the early 18th century, with large scale, detailed panoramas, important prospects of the interior of the Hagia Sophia and views from the Ottoman city. A big map is accompanied by minor drawings from the Black Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt, as well as a spectacular set of water-colours of head dresses from the Ottoman world. The Loos collection of drawings is today kept in the National Museum in Stockholm.". Texts by Göran Baarnhielm, Ulla Ehrensvard, Nurhan Atasoy, Günsel Renda, Bo Lundstörm,