Descripción

Oil on wood. Signed and dated. Framed (455 x 258 mm). Museum-quality panoramic painting of Istanbul with steamships and sailboats on the Golden Horn and the Hagia Sophia in the background. The foreground is dominated by the Grand Vezier Hüseyin Avni Pasha in a coach, escorted by horsemen, surrounded by a crowd. - The Regensburg-born Heinrich Lang, noted painter of horses and battles as well as writer and illustrator, studied with Karl Steffek in Berlin, Friedrich Voltz and Franz Adam in Munich and Adolf Schreyer in Paris. He travelled to Greece and Turkey and proved himself a careful observer of Ottoman costume and culture. His colourful paintings of Turkish tradesmen, camel drivers, donkey-drawn wagons and splendidly decorated carriages show his great attention to detail and were greeted by contemporaries as a much-welcomed relief from the grey military scenes that had dominated the previous years (cf. ADB Ll, 551).