Description
A rare ephemeral hectographed portrait with title in Ottoman and Armenian script was made for the occasion of the investiture of Mehmed V Reşâd (1844 – 1918) on April 27, 1909. Mehmed V was a puppet leader no real political power, as a consequence of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908.
Ironically, only days before Mehmed’s investiture the Adana massacre occurred in the Adana Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire resulting in the deaths of as many as 20,000–30,000 Armenians. Six year later it was followed by the Armenian Genocide during and after World War I. Mehmed V died during WWI, on 3 July 1918 at the age of 73, and he did not live to see the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.
The image was also distributed in the shape of postcards, sometimes with added title written in Greek. The languages on the bottom were added depending on the region of the Ottoman Empire, the portrait was made in.
The portrait was printed as an ephemera in a limited edition in the technique of hectography and a survival rate of such documents is extremely low. We could not find any other examples of the portrait in institutions worldwide.
