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IMAGES OF THE : THE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS PRESENTED BY SULTAN ABDULHAMID II

MUHAMMAD ISA WALEY

ONE of the treasures of the British Library's Turkish collections is the magnificent set of fifty-one ornately bound albums, containing in all over i,8oo photographs (albumen prints), which the Ottoman Sultan Abdlilhamid II presented to the British Museum in 1893 and were received in 1894. (An almost identical set was given to the United States in the same years.) The contents represent a carefully picked selection from the vast photographic collection amassed by the Sultan, whose complete archive of over 33,000 prints is preserved at the University Library. The gift was designed to show the Sultan, sovereign of a still considerable territory with a great history, as a reforming and enlightened ruler. Abdlilhamid II was an extraordinary figure and can be seen from many different viewpoints. It is not always easy for the reader to believe that the comprehensive character assassination by Sir ,^ the slightly romantic, perhaps over-protective account by Joan Haslip,^ and the quasi-hagiography by the Turkish writer Necip Fazil Kisakurek^ all really concern the same man. In fact, there is abundant scope and material for further research on the Sultan and the events of his reign, which lasted from 1876 to 1909. His photographs will surely play a part in that process. The volumes of mounted photographs range in size from about 25 x 30 to 30 x 40 cm. They are beautifully bound in very dark green adorned with the insignia of Sultan Abdtilhamid II inlaid in red, green and black edged with gold. The fore-edges are gilt and each volume is lettered in gold. The albumen prints are mounted with starch adhesive upon pages of thick card. These have warped, thus accelerating damage from airborne pollution, light, and other environmental factors. The deterioration of the photographs themselves is due partly to the acidic content of the mounts and partly to argentothiosulphate residues from the developing process, which have caused 'speckling' in many prints. Cuts in the British Library's conservation budget have halted work on the photographs, but the volumes have been wrapped to slow their deterioration pending full conservation measures. Some volumes are made up in Islamic style: to the Western reader they appear back to front, with photographs on the 'verso' sides. The subject matter of each photograph is indicated on its mount by a handwritten descriptive caption. Most have two captions: one in and one in French (or, in a few cases, in English).

Ill In May 1894 the Principal Librarian of the British Museum received from the Foreign Office a copy of a despatch to the Earl of Kimberley from Sir Philip Currie, H.M. Ambassador to the Porte. Currie had been asked to forward to the Museum twelve cases of books and photographs. These, he reported, had been 'presented by the Sultan to Her Majesty's Government for the use of the British public in order that it should be generally known in what progress has been made in literature and science in since His Majesty came to the throne, and to show how greatly he is interested in the advancement of learning and education in his Empire'.^ The record of the meeting of the British Museum's Trustees held on 9 June 1894 gave prominence to the report submitted by the Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts, Robert Douglas, concerning the presentation by the Sultan of Turkey of a special collection, handsomely bound, of all the books, 255 in number, published in during His Majesty's reign, together with 47 albums of photographs of objects of interest in and near Constantinople. Each volume is inscribed in Arabic and English as a gift from the Sultan to the British Museum, and the binding is in the Osmanli colours.^ The wording of this report suggests that in 1894, two years after the retirement of Charles Rieu, a great pioneering scholar of Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscript studies and literature, the Department lacked a specialist with any inkling of the number of books published at Istanbul since 1876. Can an annual average of fourteen publications have seemed a convincing figure? The report also implies insufficient linguistic expertise to distinguish Turkish from Arabic. In fairness, it should be mentioned that the first half of the inscription is entirely in (less than perfect) Arabic. The whole reads thus: el-Muslemd bi-tevfikdt [sic] ir-Rabbdmye, Melik ud-Devlet il-aliyet il-Osmaniye / [tugra] es-Sultan ihn us-Sullan is-Sultan [sic] el-Gazi / Abdulhamid / Han-i Sdni Hazretlenmn taraf-i e§ref-i miilukdnelermden / Londrada Ingiltere Muzehane Kutuphanesine ihda buyurulmu^tur / sene-i 1310.^ The inscription in English on the rear covers is simpler: Gift / made by H.I.M. the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. / to the Library / of the / British Museum / / 1893. At the time of the Keeper's report, not all of the books and albums had yet reached the Museum. There were four more albums to come, as well as more printed volumes. At least one book never reached its intended destination, and came to light some years ago, complete with its inscribed presentation binding, in a bookseller's catalogue. The Trustees instructed the British Museum's Principal Librarian to send the Sultan special thanks for his gift. No doubt the beauty of the photographs and the craftsmanship of the bindings spoke for themselves. Yet librarians and others have tended to underestimate the documentary and artistic importance of photographs, as is illustrated by the history of the Sultan Abdulhamid albums. For nearly a century they languished, uncared for and uncatalogued, before and after their transferral to the British Library in 1973. The present article is one of several means by which it is hoped to make amends

112 for past neglect. The albums have been arranged in a logical order and published in microfiche, with a preface and a summary list of the contents of each album. ^ Meanwhile, the staif of the Harvard Semitic Museum, under the guidance of the Curator, Carney Gavin, prepared a complete catalogue of the collection of photographs which the Sultan presented to the Library of Congress in 1894 through Congressman Abram Hewitt. Comparison revealed that the two libraries' collections are almost identical. The present writer contributed details of the differences, and other Turcological information, to the catalogue of the London and Washington albums, which appeared in Autumn 1988.^ Besides the photographs, as has been mentioned, the Sultan also sent to the British Museum about 280 similarly bound printed books, chiefly textbooks and reference works on scientific, technical, or literary and cultural subjects. They are fairly representative of published literary activity and book production during the period. In fact, the number of publications produced between the accession of Abdulhamid in 1876 and the year 1893 runs into thousands, although censorship and the political climate greatly limited the types of hterature that could be written or published on Ottoman soil. Numerous Ottoman intellectuals worked and published overseas. The published output of the era is documented in a bibliography entitled Devr-i Hatnidi dsdri, compiled by Mizanci Mehmed Murad, a one-time dissident, and published in A.H. 1308/A.D. 1891. Not surprisingly, it was among the books selected for presentation. It is hoped to produce a descriptive hst of the British Library's Sultan Abdulhamid book collection in the future. The remainder of the present article, however, will concentrate on the photographs.

EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE NEAR EAST Among the of the Near and Middle East there was initially considerable opposition to photography, and to a much lesser extent this still persists in places today. Among the reasons for this is the Judaic and Islamic prohibition of'graven images'. It is not always understood that this is not only a matter of law or dogma. It is also a question of the genius and temperament of the peoples concerned, amongst whom sculptural and pictorial art was traditionally seen as entaihng spiritual dangers - not least the risk of making the things of this lower world appear more 'substantial' than they should in terms of metaphysical reality. Another factor in the early mistrust of photography was, and occasionally still is, a tendency to regard it as an intrusion on privacy. To return to the question of legality: photography was widely tolerated in practice by the ulema, but as late as August 1920 the official journal Ceride-i tlmiye, issued by the §eyh til-, the supreme authority on the administration of Islamic law in the Ottoman Empire, pubhshed the text of ^fetva, or legal ruling, stating it to be a sin for a Muslim to paint or to photograph a human being or an animal.^ The first photographers active in the Near and Middle East, then, were all either Europeans or Christians. Several were Armenian, like Abdullah Freres who produced so much fine work for Sultan Abdulhamid. Following the invention of the daguerrotype process in 1839, and that of glass negatives in 1851, there arose a widespread demand for photography amongst both European travellers to the Middle East, the new * Grand Tour\ and armchair travellers. The i86os saw the arrival in of the Bonfils family,, whose firm produced 15,000 photographic prints of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Greece between 1863 and 1867 alone and continued to take large numbers of pictures until the first decade of this century. The negatives were prepared on the spot, using a collodion solution with silver nitrate, on glass plates. Developing also had to be done on location immediately after exposure. All this called for great skill and resourcefulness. This process results in prints which are a very attractive golden brown in colour; being grainless, they are also particularly distinct. Other photographers, too, were able to establish themselves and achieve commercial success. Picturesque views of'the lands of the Bible' were much in demand. The work produced in response, though generally aesthetically pleasing and of good technical quality, presented an unrealistically romantic picture of the region and its people. For example, Palestinian peasants were induced to pose in contrived groups, costume and settings for picture postcards of Nativity and other Biblical scenes;^'' a case study in the ways of Orientalism.

SULTAN ABDULHAMID II AND PHOTOGRAPHY In the Ottoman Empire under Abdlilhamid II, photography was to find more practical and documentary applications. The Sultan took a strong interest in the subject even before his accession, and grasped with some shrewdness the possible uses to which photography could be put. Tahsin Pa§a, his chief secretary, recalled Abdlilhamid devouring foreign illustrated newspapers and telling him, 'Every picture is an idea. One picture can evoke political and psychological significances which a hundred written pages could not convey. I therefore derive more benefit from photographs than from written papers.'^^ The Sultan was interested in the traditional science of physiognomy {kiyafet, or /eraset)^ according to which traits of character can be deduced from physical features. He employed this in examining photographs in order to select suitable convicts for amnesty on the occasion of his , and students for admission to military colleges. ^^ More than three centuries earlier, Ottoman Sultans had begun to employ painters to illustrate the official chronicles of their military and naval campaigns and of other events, such as princes' circumcision ceremonies, which were accompanied by street parades and other spectacles. The results were often beautiful, and they were realistic to the extent required by the sensibility of the time. Some of the detailed bird's eye views of townscapes and landscapes painted by Matrak9i Nasuh, the court artist, topographer and chronicler of Siileyman I, 'the Magnificent', seem to foreshadow the photographic panoramas and aerial views that were made possible by technology some 350 years later. ^^ For much of his long reign, Sultan Abdlilhamid lived in constant fear of assassination. It was a period of well-nigh constant crisis and struggle for the survival of the Empire. Large numbers of the non-Turkish population, encouraged and often exploited by the 114 Fig. I. Port of Istanbul and , seen from the Topkapi . Album 4, Photo 8

Fig. 2. The landing stage of Rumeli Hisar on the Bosphorus. Album 6, Photo 3 '1 . 1 I' L 'fajA L

Tubercular ward, Hasseki Women's Hospital. The captions and photograph frame are shown to illustrate the appearance of a typical album leaf Album 36, Photo 7

116 European Powers and fired by modern nationalistic and secular ideals, used every opportunity to press for independence. Other grave problems were the inefficiency and corruption of the governmental apparatus; the backwardness of the Empire in many respects, military technology being an example; and a huge national debt arising chiefly from the payment of war reparations to Russia. In general, Abdiilhamid failed to capitalize on the remaining possibilities of reforming his Empire and strengthening its future prospects. Although he made abundant efforts his natural abilities were counterbalanced by personality problems; these are generally viewed as resulting from the difficult and isolated conditions of his childhood life.^^ The accounts of Abdulhamid by most British writers of the time are informed by an undisguised animosity which can rarely have been paralleled. Abdulhamid is viewed by historians as an oppressive ruler. Indeed he was, and there is much to criticize in his record; but if such actions as the dismissal of the National Assembly seem indefensible and exacerbated his problems, some measures were scarcely avoidable reactions to provocation/^ The Sultan attempted numerous institutional reforms and some did result in the partial modernization of the empire, as numerous photographs in his collection suggest. ^^ Shy and fearful, the Sultan rarely issued from his refuge, the Yildiz Palace complex at Be§ikta§ near the European shore of the Bosphorus. To keep abreast of political and other developments he had recourse to an extensive network of spies and informers. Photography provided an almost ideal means to supplement oral and written information with visual data. Here one may recall a truism of great importance: photography, though apparently a factual medium, can well lend itself to the masking or distortion of the truth. It is not certain whether the Sultan was aware of this; perhaps those officials whose areas of responsibility were visited by the Sultan's photographers were.^^ In any event, there are examples in the Sultan's own collection of photographs which illustrate the point. From the subjects of the photographs selected for presentation to foreign libraries it appears probable that the prime intention was to show the regime of Sultan Abdulhamid as that of an enlightened and reforming ruler intent on modernizing his empire and improving the well-being of his subjects. Given the nature of the institutions for which they were destined, it may be that in addition to the immediate purpose of 'image- building' abroad the Sultan was also concerned to preserve for the eyes of posterity some of the architectural and scenic glories, both Islamic and Classical, of western Asia Minor. It is unlikely that the officials who were custodians of the Empire's antiquities and monuments would have learned of the Sultan's decision to present photographs to the British Museum. It would perhaps have come as a relief to them, for the Sultan had previously presented to Kaiser Wilhelm such treasures as an entire temple facade from Pergamum, now preserved in what was known, before the reunification of Berlin, as the Pergamon-Museum. Abdulhamid was a traditionalist, aware of the past greatness of his beleaguered domain; seeking to remind the British Museum and its visitors of Turkey's past civilizations may have seemed promising as a means of eliciting a more sympathetic response from public opinion.

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THE SULTAN'S PHOTOGRAPHERS Who actually produced the large numbers of documentary pictures contained in the Sultan's albums? Most were Armenian, Greek or French commercial photographers based in Istanbul. Some may have worked on commission for the Court. Mention is here confined to those whose work is to be found in the Library's albums. ^^ Best and most successful was the firm of Abdullah Freres, three Armenian brothers named Vigen, Hovsep', and Gevork. Vigen, at one time also renowned as a miniature painter, later took the name Abdullah Sukrii on his conversion to Islam. On his visit to Istanbul in 1862 the Abdullah Freres photographed the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. In 1867, their work on display in the Turkish pavilion at the Exhibition attracted mention in The Times. Appointed as photographers to the Court in 1874, they regularly advertised the firm as such in Ulndicateur constantinopolitam, Istanbul's commercial yearbook. This publication also carried advertisements for other photographic firms. One was the Levantine-French partnership of Pascal Sebah and Policarpe Joaillier, award-winning * photographers to the Court of Prussia', who also had a studio in . Later, in 1899, Sebah et Joaillier took over the Abdullah Freres studio, where Sebah had trained. Also represented in the Library's collection is another Armenian photographer, Paul Tarkulyan (Bolos Tarkulian, d. 1940), again an Abdullah Freres trainee, known professionally as Phebus Efendi. Phebus opened his own studio in 1890 and he too became photographer to the Court. After the deposition of Sultan Abdulhamid he was much employed by Sultan Mehmed Re§ad V. Some of the volumes in the Sultan's complete collection appear to have been offered to him by other firms or individuals seeking his patronage. There are innumerable scenes of people and places around the world. On the other hand, there are several catalogues, finely illustrated, of the products of Krupp, the German arms and munitions manufacturers. Formerly housed at the Yildiz Palace, and saved from destruction at the time of Abdlilhamid's deposition by the heroism of the Palace librarian, Kalkandelenli Sabri , the Sultan's own albums are now kept at Library.^^ The remaining photographs in the collections held at the British Library and the Library of Congress are the work of Ottoman government photographers. Some are from the studio of Uskudarli Ali Riza (d. 1907), whose work can be seen to have included documentation of civilian aspects of the Ottoman infrastructure. Ali Riza rose to the level of Pa§a as chief photographer to the War Ministry. Other pictures were taken by staff of the Imperial Academy of Engineering. In most cases the person responsible is named, either on the print or on its mount. There are instances in which a photograph was taken by another individual whose archive of negatives was later acquired by a different studio and incorporated into its holdings. That applies to the view of a school at Trabzon on the Black Sea coast (Album 12, no. 17): the mount is that of Sebah et Joaillier but the negative bears the name of Cacoulis, a local Trabzon photographer.^^ Of the fifty-one volumes, no fewer than thirty-five (1,292 prints in all) are by Abdullah Freres. There are two albums (sixty-six prints) each from Phebus and from Ali Riza. 119 One, with fifty-five prints, is from the Academy of Engineering. The remaining nine albums, containing altogether 286 prints, bear no attribution.^^

CONTENTS OF THE ALBUMS The albums ot photographs were assembled with care; almost every one forms a coherent collection of related images. For present purposes the albums can conveniently be divided into three categories. ^'^ The first, which accounts for twenty of the fifty-one albums, comprises views of topographical scenes and architectural monuments, Byzantine and Islamic (e.g. figs, i, 2). Most are views of Istanbul, the Ottoman metropolis, and its environs, but two albums are devoted to the architectural splendours ot Bursa and provide, more fieetingly, views of Eski^ehir, (Nicaea), and Sbgut - all towns associated with the rise of the Ottoman to imperial greatness. Here it is only possible to list the contents of a few albums by way of example. One offers a panoramic view of the , followed by exterior views of Ayasofya (); the At Meydani (Hippodrome); the Sultan Ahmed, Suleymaniye and Fethiye Mosques; and finally some turbes (mausolea) and fountains at Eylip Sultan, at that time a village rather than a suburb. Another volume contains exterior and interior views of the Topkapi and Yildiz . The former includes an oppressive abundance of ceramics, clocks, weaponry and other antiques, as well as the robes of earlier Sultans. Particularly poignant are pictures of a throne and other relics of imperial pomp, visible behind glass cabinets but half-obscured by dust (fig. 6). A sequence of six scenes of the Selamhk ceremony features in a different volume, which also reveals some of the many attractions of the complex of buildings in which the Sultan spent most of his reign, latterly confining himself mainly to a suite of just three rooms. Also featured in the same volume are the landscaped grounds of the Yildiz, with their pavilions and ornamental lake, which have largely been splendidly restored in recent years. Another album has street scenes in the Galata and Pera districts of the capital, the tombs of several Sultans, and various fountains. In one photograph well-to-do Europeans, standing in a street adjoining the Galata Tower, cheer and wave their hats; another features the busy pedestrian and equestrian traffic over the old wooden . Two albums are mainly devoted to studies of the better-known mosques, including the former Byzantine basilicas such as the Kariye (St Saviour in Chora), whose magnificent mosaics are recorded in detail, a superb technical achievement. Yet another volume is given over entirely to Ayairene (the Church of St Irene), incongruously used as a museum of arms and armour; it is now a concert hall.^^ In very few of these photographs does one catch the least glimpse of the general public; it surely cannot be by chance alone that they remain almost totally out of the picture. Despite this policy, perhaps by oversight, the occasional bystander or man in the street is seen. The ^woman in the street' is altogether absent, the patients in the tubercular ward of Hasseki Women's Hospital (fig. 3) being the only females portrayed

120 Fig. s- Outside Mihrimah Mosque, Uskiidar. Album 19, Photo 7

Fig. 6. Topkapi Palace: a throne with its custodians. Album 8, Photo 45

121 m the collection, apart from the school pupils to be mentioned later. One or two shots at!ord an aper^u of the city's real street life. Apart from the Galata scene which has already been described there is a view of the Valide Mosque in Uskiidar (the Scutari of Florence Nightingale), on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, at midday which is enlivened by the presence of street vendors, cart drivers, and other people of the locality (fig. 5). Finally, one may subsume into the first category the two splendid tomes devoted exclusively to portraits of thoroughbred horses and foals, together with their grooms, and views of their paddocks in the imperial stables and stud farm of Ayazaga. For added et!ect the Arabian horses' grooms often pose in Arab dress. The inclusion of equine subjects shows that at least some of Abdulhamid's notions as to what would impress the British people were well-founded. The overall standard of the pictures in the albums of the first general category is very high, the large majority being the work of Abdullah Freres. The second subject category, covering some sixteen albums in all, comprises pictures of Ottoman naval and military institutions, personnel and equipment, together with those of ancillary services such as fire brigades and coastguards. Most, but by no means all, were photographed in and around the Ottoman capital. The Imperial Navy, once the Sultans' pride and joy, no longer commanded such prestige by the time of Abdulhamid II, and financial difficulties made it impossible for him to carry out its thoroughgoing modernization as he wished.^"* Nevertheless, the photographs document the fact that considerable efforts were made. There are pictures of frigates, cruisers and a submarine, together with guns and torpedoes; imperial yachts, with their opulent interiors; dockyards and marine installations (fig. 7); drills on board ship; marine bands; and the often imposing countenances of high-ranking Naval officers. The Army is represented chiefiy by views of barracks, arsenals, and arms and ordnance factories, and by scenes of parades and drills. Whilst it is true that monotony sets in at times, the military-industrial photographs, like the rest, furnish abundant evidence for study. There are gun foundries, powder mills, ammunition dumps, and even a cavernous interior view of the workshop which produced the uniform fez for military personnel. Another workshop, where army timepieces were repaired, provided the photographer with the subject for a fine still-life composition. Among the more colourful scenes are those showing fire brigade personnel on manoeuvres and sequential shots of coastguards performing rescue drills. A number of pictures give prominence to equipment and apparel, as for example in the portraits of navy divers with their British-made gear. Intriguing from the aesthetic viewpoint is the fashion in which men and equipment are deployed in carefully, often most ingeniously, composed shots whilst taking pains to pose as though engaged in urgent operations such as fire rescues. Gymnastic exercises and fencing, too, are painstakingly * frozen' in action. Also included in this second category are several views of non-military industrial buildings and plant, such as a tannery at Beykoz on the Bosphorus, better known for its glass factory. Great care evidently went into the compositions of railway locomotives and personnel in the Eregli coalfields near the Black Sea coast (fig. 8).

122 Fig. 7. Laying the keel of a gunboat, Izmit. Album 24, Photo 10

Fig. 8. Coke furnace and locomotives, Eregh coalfield. Album 27, Photo 23 123

- .Jbf.

Ftg. 10. Staff and students of the Imperial College for Deaf Mutes. Album 47, Photo 25

The fifteen albums in the third and last subject group record examples of the many educational institutions, civil and military, which were either founded or reformed under Sultan Abdulhamid II: a genuine achievement. A good many of the academies included were located in far-flung provincial cities of the empire, places not otherwise represented in the selections sent to London and Washington. Examples are Serrai, in Epirus; Edirne, in European Turkey; Erzurum, in Eastern ; and , in Syria; Baghdad, in Iraq; and Sanaa, in Yemen. The photographs in this category are for the most part dull and unrevealing exterior views. In some cases, ground plans and elevations of the buildings are included for good measure. Redeeming features, for those in search of more informative or aesthetically pleasing visual images, include one or two sites shown during the process of construction; this was perhaps intended to emphasize the ongoing nature of the Sultan's programme of educational development. Better still is a refectory interior (fig. 4) wherein china, cutlery and half-loaves, laid out with military precision, await the diners' arrival. In addition to the government-run schools and colleges, a number of private institutions are represented. In most cases there are exterior views of the buildings and also portraits of uniformed students, generally in pairs. The monotony of some of these albums, excessively formal to modern taste, is broken by numerous charming portraits of small schoolgirls, and by a few striking tableau compositions. One such is an elaborate and bizarre group featuring students in a medical academy at an anatomy class, with instruments, skeletons, and cadaver (fig. 9). According to William Allen^'* the scene was

125 taken outdoors in order to have sufficient light but was designed to give the impression ot being an indoor shot. If that really was the intention, such a trompe Pceil effect serves to illustrate the doubts raised above concerning the objectivity of photography as a documentary medium. Other features of particular interest in the volumes belonging to the educational category include the persons and tribal dress of alumni at one of the Apret schools. These institutions were established by Abdulhamid II to train future members of the Ottoman tribal regiments which were raised in emulation of the Russians' Cossack troops. Both demonstrative and appealing are the pupils at the Imperial School for Deaf Mutes (Dilsiz Mektebi), gesturing towards the spectator in sign language (fig. io); an appropriate enough picture, perhaps, with which to close this exploration of the eloquence of the visual image.

CONCLUSION While they may or may not excite the curiosity of the non-specialist, the Sultan Abdulhamid photographs are a rich source of evidence for the student of late Ottoman institutions. The exciting new science of photo-archaeology, employing video and image- enhancement techniques, has already helped in the authentic restoration of historical monuments in Jordan and in the study of agricultural practices in Palestine a century ago. This development is largely due to the work done at the Harvard Semitic Museum by its curator, Fr Carney Gavin, and his staff. At the same time, the beauty and historical importance of Ottoman photographs are becoming more widely appreciated as a result of publication and study. Nonetheless, much work remains to be undertaken on this material. Interested researchers will be welcome to consult the albums in the British Library's Oriental Reading Room, although for conservation reasons they will normally be asked to consult the microfiche edition in the first place. Through the media of photographic reproduction (in Turkey), microfiche (in Europe) and optical disc (in the United States), these 'windows on the past', to use Carney Gavin's phrase, are now available for use by scholars and others worldwide. Sultan Abdulhamid was both ruler of one of the world's last quasi-theocratic empires and at the same time a determined modernizer. His donation to the British Museum of what today might be termed 'state-of-the-art propaganda' reflects that combination of conservative retrospection and openness to the possibilities afforded by technology and the visual image. One suspects that the Sultan would have approved of the wider dissemination of his far-sighted gift, as its centenary approaches.

1 Sir Edwin ?c^rs. Life of Ahd uI-Hamid (London, 4 British Museum archives: this and other copy- iqij), right material is printed by kind permission of 2 Joan I laslip, The Sultan: the life of Abdul Hamid the Trustees. The writer is also much indebted // (London, 1958). fo Mr Christopher Date, Deputy Archivist of the 3 Necip Fazil Kisakurek, Ulu Hakan II. Sullan Museum, for his assistance. Abdulhamtt Han (Istanbul, 1965). 5 Report preserved in the archive of the British 126 Library Oriental Collections. Thanks are due to Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire Dr Vrej Nersessian for tracing this document. and Modern Turkey., vol. ii (Cambridge, 1977), p. 6 In this article all Ottoman names and words have 172. been rendered into modern Turkish ortho- 15 On political reform and reaction under Abdul- graphy, except that the final d in Abdulhamid and hamid II, see S. J. Shaw and E. K. Shaw, op. other names retains its voiced form and the izafet cit., vol. ii, pp. 211-20. suffix is hyphenated as -i. 16 The Sultan's efforts towards modernizing his 7 M. L Waley (ed.), Sultan 'Abdulhamid Photo- Empire are surveyed, along with cultural graph Collection: early Turkish photographs from developments during his reign, in Shaw and the British Library in microfiche (Zug: IDC, Shaw, op. cit., pp. 221-63. 1987). 17 See the article by William Allen, 'The Abdul 8 C. E. S. Gavin (ed.), Imperial Self-Portrait: the Hamid II Collection', History of Photography, Ottoman Empire as revealed in the Sultan Abdul viii, no. 2 (Apr.-June 1984), pp. 119—45; a Hamid ITs photographic albums. Published as revised version without the illustrations, 'Analy- journal of Turkish Studies, xii (Cambridge, ses of Abdul-Hamid's gift albums', is included Mass., 1988). This contains reproductions, in in Imperial Self-Portrait, pp. 33-7, 39-43- black and white, of 166 carefully selected items. 18 Accounts of prominent photographers of the 9 The text is translated in Engin ^izgen, Photo- period down to 1919 are included in the chapter graphy in the Ottoman Empire, j8jg-igig ' Photographers' in ^izgen, op. cit., pp. 46— (Istanbul, 1987), pp. 15-16; she also quotes the 179. Biblical prohibition in Exodus 20: 4. On the 19 The descriptive catalogue of the entire Sultan question of images, religion, and photography Abdulhamid collection of albums is in pre- see Yeshayahu Nir, The Bible and the Image paration by Prof. Nurhan Atasoy of Istanbul (Philadelphia, 1986). University. Negatives and prints of the entire 10 Sarah Graham-Brown, Palestinians and their collection are held by the Research Centre for Society 1880-1 g46: a photographic essay Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) at (London, 1980), pp. 1-2, 10. See also Jacob M. Istanbul. That institution is housed in part of the Landau, Abdul Hamid's Palestine (Jerusalem, Yildiz Palace complex, near Be§ikta§. 1979)1 PP- 7~i7i concerning photography and 20 See Allen, 'Analyses', p. 35. the Sultan; Walid Khahdy, Before their Dia- 21 Ibid. spora: a photographic history of the Palestinians, 22 This categorization has been applied in the i8j6-jg48 (Washington, D.C., 1984). numeration of the British Library albums and 11 Tahsin Pa§a, AbdUlhamit ve Yildiz hatiralari in the microfiche edition. Sultan 'Abdulhamid (Istanbul, 1931), p. 251. Cf. ^izgen, op. cit., p. Photograph Collection; cf the different categories 23- applied in Allen, 'Analyses', p. 33. 12 Qzgen, op. cit., p. 23. 23 Many views of Istanbul from the Yildiz Palace 13 Matrak9i Nasuh ibn Karagoz Silahi, Beyan-i collection are reproduced in Ekmeleddin menazil-i sefer-i Irakeyn-i Sultan Suleyman Han,, ihsanoglu (ed.), Istanbul: a glimpse into the past ed. with facsimile by H. G. Yurdaydm (, (Istanbul, 1987). 1976). See also Nurhan Atasoy and Filiz 24 Allen, 'Analyses', p. 34; Shaw and Shaw, op. gagman, Turkish Miniature Painting (Istanbul, cit., vol. ii, p. 245. 1974), pp. 26-8 and pi. 6. 25 Allen, 'Analyses', pp. 34—5. 14 See Haslip, op. cit.; cf. Stanford J. Shaw and

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