Dancing Girls at Kandill on the Bosphorus.

MELLING, Antoine Ignace "Desiné par Melling. Gravé à l'eau-forte par Dessaulx et le Rouge. Terminé par Bovinet." Second view of the Bosphorus near Kandilli. "Seconde vue du du Bosphore, prise à Kandilly" Paris, Strassburg & London Treuttel et Würtz 1819
Large copper engraving of Kandilli, from Antoine Ignace Melling's " Voyage Pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphore."Plate 4; black and white. Proof copy before titles
The plate shows Kandilli, Üsküdar on the Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. In the foreground, Ottoman women dancing. with the castles of Rumelihisarı and Anadoluhisarı in the midground. Dark impression; from an unfolded copy, proof before titles; light toning; stain of 2 lines of spots to left side and also a few to centre; stain wax? damp? to lower edge of page; minor tears to edges of page.

MELLING, Antoine Ignace (1763-1831).

Melling, who was trained in both architecture and painting, went to the city at the age of nineteen as a member of the Russian ambassador's retinue, and remained there for eighteen years. He became architect to Hatice Sultan, Selim III's sister, and the favour of the sultan himself eventually allowed him to study the interior of the Harem and other palaces. He returned to Paris in 1803, but despite producing a prospectus for his work soon afterwards, only began publication in 1809, finally completing it in 1819. The plates include some of the earliest interior views of the harem and the sultan's palaces, besides stunning delineations of the city's skylines, often with members of Ottoman society in the foreground.
Atabey: 798-799; Blackmer /Navari:1105; Brunet: III, 1591; Lipperheide:LB 41. 480 by 882mm (19 by 34¾ inches).   ref: 2392  €2250