Description

SALES CATALOGUE – GERMAN IMPRINT
SULTAN OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
FIRST GRECO-TURKISH WAR

The handsome catalogue, chromolithographed in Nuremberg, Germany, was made for the occasion of a sale, organized by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. 75 luxury objects from the household of the sultan and other dignitaries, presented in this booklet in French and Ottoman language, were sold in a special pavilion, built on the premises of the Yıldız Palace and depicted on the last cover of this brochure, with a goal to raise money for invalids of the last war and the families of the victims.

The American journalist Sidney Whitman, who traveled through Turkey between 1896-1908, described the palace and the sale with the following words:

The Sultan next expressed a wish that I might inspect the “Bazar de Secours” started by him to raise funds for the invalids and the families of the victims of the war. It was a large one-storied building which had been specially erected at his expense a short distance from the Palace, and which was to be opened in a few days to the public. We are sometimes able to estimate the taste, and even the very character, of the inmates of a house by the articles it contains. So also on this occasion the collection of heterogeneous objects exhibited for sale spoke a language of its own. To begin with, almost every third article, and these the most costly, was a gift from the Sultan himself; many others were from members of his household and the fine old Turkish families generally. (Sidney Whitman. Turkish Memories (S.52). Kindle-Version).

Whitman’s description also allows to date the brochure in 1897 with the “last war” in the title meaning the First Greco-Turkish War, fought in the same year between April 18 and May 20.

We could only trace examples in Turkish institutions and none on Worldcat.