Tag: Interesting views of Turkey

Bits and pieces of the Levant and Eastern Europe back when the Ottomans ran it. Imagery from Luigi Mayer’s “Interesting views in Turkey : selected from the original drawings, taken for Sir Robert Ainslie.” Published in 1819 in London. Sir Robert Ainslie was a diplomat stationed in Constantinople, the British ambassador to the Porte from 1776 to 1794.

Ciala Kavak. Page 34 of Luigi Mayer’s Interesting Views in Turkey, selected from the original drawings, taken for Sir Robert Ainslie. Printed in London in 1819 by Robert Bowyer by Bensley and Son, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. Collections of the George Washington University Libraries. via the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/39020024846001-interestingview/page/n34/mode/1up

Piccolo Bent. Page 48 of Luigi Mayer’s Interesting Views in Turkey, selected from the original drawings, taken for Sir Robert Ainslie. Printed in London in 1819 by Robert Bowyer by Bensley and Son, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. Collections of the George Washington University Libraries. via the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/39020024846001-interestingview/page/n47/mode/1up

Kaskerat. Page 65 of Luigi Mayer’s Interesting Views in Turkey, selected from the original drawings, taken for Sir Robert Ainslie. Printed in London in 1819 by Robert Bowyer by Bensley and Son, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. Collections of the George Washington University Libraries. via the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/39020024846001-interestingview/page/n65/mode/1up
Mosque in Latachia. Page 83 of Luigi Mayer’s Interesting Views in Turkey, selected from the original drawings, taken for Sir Robert Ainslie. Printed in London in 1819 by Robert Bowyer by Bensley and Son, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. Collections of the George Washington University Libraries. via the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/39020024846001-interestingview/page/n83/mode/1up

Luigi Mayer did other illustrated books about places in the Ottoman Empire including one with plates of places in Palestine which I have blogged about here before. Just search on “Luigi Mayer” and it’ll pull them up. Mayer was a German artist. There were of course many very talented Ottoman artists but most of their work was for the Ottoman market not the Western one Mayer’s work was aimed at.