Félix Ziem

Sale Collection de Mme S. [Soucaret], M^e Chevallier, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 29 May 1903, lot 73 (titled Constantinople);

Sale Collection de Mme S. [Soucaret], M^e Chevallier, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 5 May 1905, lot 54 (titled Constantinople : la Corne d'Or);

Collection Jean Alexis Duparchy (1835-1907);

By descent to the present owner.

A. Burdin-Hellebranth, Félix Ziem, Brussels 1998, vol. II, p. 219, no. 1496 (repr.).

Although he began his career by training as an architect, Félix Ziem (1821–1911), a self-taught French painter, made his name among his contemporaries as a painter of landscapes and marine scenes. Close to the Barbizon and considered to be one of the precursors of Impressionism, he produced a vast oeuvre of more than ten thousand paintings, watercolours and drawings characterized by their vibrant light and palette. He toured the Mediterranean and travelled as far as Russia, notably visiting countries to the east of the basin, including the Ottoman Empire and the city of Constantinople. The works prompted by his travels found immense international success in his lifetime, enabling him to exhibit regularly at the Salons and become one of the first artists to see one of his works enter the Louvre, in 1905.

Although he held a particular affection for Venice, Constantinople, which he discovered in 1847, was also a favourite place to paint and he returned there several times. This was an opportunity for him to create ‘orientalising’ works, such as Fantasia in Constantinople (between 1880 and 1895, Paris, Petit Palais, inv. PPP222), as well as the present work, Frigate with Flags Hoisted on the Bosphorus, Constantinople. With his architectural views, his focus on light and atmosphere in the Ottoman city, he joined the ‘Orientalist’ tradition, presenting an idealized view of the East, seen by Westerners as a timeless place of mystery and exoticism.

In this panorama of the Ottoman city, Ziem chooses to concentrate on the passage of a frigate with flags hoisted on the Bosphorus. Surrounded by other boats, she is crossing the strait against a backdrop of the Golden Horn and the Fatih quarter, recognizable by its palaces, domes and minarets, including the Süleymaniye, Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmed mosques. While significant space is given to the vibrant blue of the sky, reflected in the blue of the Bosphorus, the artist has also shown, in the foreground, the banks of Beyoğlu, where a long boat is moored. As in A caïque, view of Constantinople (between 1847 and 1911, Paris, Musée d’Orsay, inv. RF 1915) or Constantinople, Hagia Sophia at Dawn (between 1870 and 1890, Paris, Petit Palais, inv. PPP201), Ziem describes the region’s golden light while revealing the historic urban outlines of the Ottoman city. 

The provenance of this beautiful oriental vision is prestigious, and resonates particularly well when we consider that it belonged to Jean Alexis Duparchy (1835-1907), who, in addition to acquiring the Château de Savigny-sur-Orge in 1882 from the Marquis d'Alta Villa, was also a major industrialist at the end of the 19^th century, participating in major international projects such as the Suez Canal, the design of the ports of Sfax, Sousse, Porto, and Montevideo, and the construction of the railways in Portugal, Ethiopia, and Puerto Rico.

This view of the Bosphorus undoubtedly evoked one of his major projects, as he was one of the builders of the quays of Constantinople.