The Ferriol Album (A collection of 100 engravings depicting various nations in Levant), 1714

The album is one of the most important works of the epoch regarding both fashion and other aspects of daily life in Levant. It was created as part of the Occident’s effort to understand the Orient and offers important clues about the way in which the Europeans perceived the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 18th century. The portraits were commissioned by Charles de Ferriol, the French ambassador in Istanbul, and made by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste Van Mour, in 1707 – 1708.

Van Mour's paintings (and the plates that derive from them) show Constantinople as a cosmopolitan place with Muslims and non-Muslims uniting in shared 'Ottoman' pleasures. Armenians, Franks, Greeks and Persians are shown drinking coffee, playing mankeh (a version of backgammon), or making music.

MAYER, Luigi
Sala del Divan Dove Il G. Vizir Tratta con Pranzo, 1790

It was common practice in the 18th and early 19th centuries for ambassadors and wealthy travellers to employ artists to accompany them abroad. In an age before photography, visual records of significant events and places were as important as textual documentation as markers of authority or achievement.

Sir Robert Ainslie was not alone among diplomats in Istanbul in employing an artist to record the events of his office; as Philip Mansel has noted, the city inspired an unusual number of “embassy pictures”.

The Topkapı Palace in Istanbul was one of the major residences of the Ottoman sultans for almost 400 years and where the Imperial Council held state meetings. Mayer's watercolour depicts a gathering of senior ministers presided over by the Sultan, with Europeans also in attendance.

FORBIN, M. Le Comte de.
Voyage dans le Levant, 1819

In his talk, one of the reasons Philip Mansel gave for Europeans extending their grand tour to this great Muslim power was the exoticism and glamour of the Oriental markets and Ottoman court.  Another reason was the desire to tread in the footsteps of the ancient civilizations.

Limited to 325 copies and issued in folio with 80 plates,  Forbin’s was one of the first important French books to use lithography on a grand scale. Most of the plates illustrate views in Egypt and Syria. As Director of Museums in 1817 he undertook a year-long voyage to the Levant, having been authorised to purchase antiquities for the Louvre.

The folio includes this famous image of Bernardino Drovetti, French consul in Egypt and notable collector of antiquities, holding on to a colossal statue. To his left, in Arab costume, is the Marseilles-born sculptor Jean-Jacques Rifaud, who combed Egypt for relics on behalf of the consul.