Overview

Over the course of the dynamic nineteenth century, the image of the Ottoman sultan maintained a complex relationship with ideas surrounding the modernisation of the Empire. This book investigates that relationship by situating the taṣvīr-i hümāyūn (imperial portrait) within the wider program of top-down modernisation movements initiated at the end of the eighteenth century under Sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807) and culminating in the Tanẓīmāt (Reorganization) era (1839–76). The study breaks new ground by considering the use of new image-making technologies and aesthetic trends – including oil-on-canvas paintings, lithographic prints, and photographs – primarily at the imperial court in Istanbul, but also at the provincial courts of the Ottoman Balkans.

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9789004733060

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Reviews

""Focusing on newly developed strategies for disseminating the sultan’s image, Alison Terndrup offers a compelling reassessment of one of the most politically and artistically consequential moments in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Both assured and nuanced in its framing, her study situates the portraits—together with their ideological, ceremonial, and diplomatic motivations—against the backdrop of larger transnational shifts while also elucidating the specifically Ottoman concerns that shaped such imagery. This is an original, adroit approach to the thorny question of Ottoman modernity that will benefit readers from across disciplines."" Ünver Rüstem, Second Decade Society Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture, Johns Hopkins University

Author Information

Alison Terndrup, Ph.D. (2021), Boston University, is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware. She has also taught at Northeastern University, where she developed a course in Dynamism and Diversity in Islamic Visual Cultures.

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