Blackmer; 1105; Atabey, 798; Ko\u00e7 Collection, 214; Lipperheide, 1434 & Lb 41.<\/i><\/p>\n
First edition of one of the most beautiful books on Istambul. It was published in 13 parts between 1809 and 1819.<\/span><\/p>\n Painter and architect of German origin, Melling travelled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East at a very young age. This journey took him to Constantinople, where he was introduced to Sultan Selim III. He then became the architect of Princess Hatice, the sultan’s sister, who wanted to renovate and decorate her palace in Oztakeu\u00ef. This gave him the freedom to move around the various palaces and the sultan’s harem, of which he provided the first plans and interior views. On his return to Paris, his work, the most beautiful ever devoted to this part of the world, was printed with great care on paper specially made for this very large-format book, with the title in watermark.<\/p>\n “Antoine-Ignace (or Anton Ignaz) Melling (1763- 1831) was born in Karlsruhe, the son of a sculptor: after his father’s death, he lived with an uncle, a painter, in Strasbourg. At the age of 19 he left for Italy and the Levant, finally arriving in Constantinople in the retinue of the Russian ambassador. He was introduced to Selim III’s sister, Hatice Sultan (1766-1821) by Baron H\u00fcbsch, for whom he had designed a garden, and quickly became intimate with the Ottoman court. (Friedrich H\u00fcbsch von Grossthal, the envoy of Denmark and Saxony, was a banker and merchant, a native of Pera and a partner in the firm of H\u00fcbsch and Timoni; he was ennobled by Emperor Joseph II in1782, the title Grossthal<\/i> being a translation of B\u00fcy\u00fckdere<\/i> (or large valley), where he had his summer residence.)<\/p>\n In 1795 Hatice chose Melling as her architect, commissioning first a labyrinth for her palace at Ortak\u00f6y, then a redesigned Interior for the building, and ultimately an entire new Neoclassical palace at Defterdarburnu. His privileged position enabled him to produce a large number of highly detailed drawings of the city’s buildings, including what is probably the only accurate interior of an imperial harem. In 1803 Melling left Constantinople for Paris and soon started making plans for the publication in instalments of the Voyage pittoresque<\/i>. The first prospectus appeared in 1803-04. inviting subscribers to register with the notary Boulard and naming the printer as Pierre Didot l’aine. With the patronage of Talleyrand, then minister for foreign affairs, Melling was appointed landscape painter to the Empress Jos\u00e9phine, and the fascicules which comprised the Voyage<\/i> began to appear in 1809. The engravings after Melling are by Duparc, Schroeder, N\u00e9e, Dupr\u00e9el, Dessaulx, Marillier and others; the maps are by Barbie du Bocage after Kauffer; the splendid gilt chromo- lithograph tu\u011fra on the engraved title, copied under the aegis of one of the Ottoman court officials, is also noteworthy. The result is one of the finest topographical illustrated books ever produced” (Ko\u00e7).<\/p>\n Complete copy with the engraved portrait, the 3 engraved maps and the 48 plates depicting views of Constantinople, the riverbanks of the Bosporus, and a large variety of palaces and their interiors including the Imperial harem.<\/p>\n Portait with old restoration.<\/p>\n Provenance : James de Rothschild (coat of arms on cover, library label ‘Ferri\u00e8res’ on the inner cover).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2 volumes, text elephant folio (700 x 533 mm) and atlas large folio (648 x 530 mm). Text : engraved portrait frontispiece, 8 nn.ll., 10 pp., 60 nn.ll. Atlas : engraved title, 3 double page maps, 48 engraved double page plates (with intermittend numbering) mounted on stubbs. Uniformly bound in mid-nineteenth-century red morocco backed marbled boards with morocco corner pieces, central medallion in red morocco with gilt coat of arms of the Rothschild family with their motto “Concordia Industria Integritas”, spine gilt with raised bands, top edge gilt (somewhat rubbed and scuffed).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":87956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[552],"product_tag":[1267,1403,1402],"class_list":{"0":"post-84559","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-travel","7":"product_tag-binding","8":"product_tag-middle-east-in-general","9":"product_tag-turkey","10":"pa_auteur-melling-antoine-ignace-2","11":"pa_type-de-livre-printed-book","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"purchasable","17":"product-type-simple"},"acf":{"artist":" Antoine-Ignace MELLING","chapeau":"The Rothschild copy","adresse_bibliographique":"Paris, Strasbourg & Londres, de l'Imprimerie de P. Didot l'ain\u00e9, Treuttel & W\u00fcrtz, 1819","book_type":"Printed book","provenance":"Provenance : James de Rothschild (coat of arms on cover, library label 'Ferri\u00e8res' on the inner cover).","afficher_prix":""},"yoast_head":"\n