Ottoman Court Painter Fausto Zonaro

Driven by an Orientalist passion, Fausto Zonaro arrived in İstanbul in 1891. Five years later in 1896 he was appointed court artist by Sultan Aldülhamit II and for nineteen years thereafter he was one of İstanbul's most renowned artists, best known for his canvases documenting the city and its ways of life. A building on Akaretler İstanbul was allocaded to Zonaro by the court for him to use as a home and a studio. It soon became one of the most popular venues frequented by the city's artistic and diplomatic circles. Among the many illustrious names recorted in his guestbook are those of Enver Pasha, Winston Churchill, Prince Abdülmecid Efendi, Adolphe Thalasso, Celal Esad Arseven, Osman Hamdi, Max Olaf Heckmann, Ohannes B. Dadian and Marshall von Bieberstein. This book is the most comprehensive study on the subject of Fausto Zonaro and his art ever undertaken. With more than 500 of his paintings and photograps, it reveals the artist's life, his milieu, his personality, his art, and his work. Told here also for the first time genuine and fully documented story of his embittered departure from İstanbul.