The exhibition consists of 12 unsigned portraits and paintings by Sultan Abdülaziz that belong to the National Palaces Painting collection. The collection had given permission six months earlier and the paintings were bought from Poland’s Krakow National Museum. There are also etchings and sketches by Abdülaziz.
Even though the paintings are unsigned the experts have worked on them and discovered that the sketches matched up with each other. The sketches and also the paintings were produced by Abdülaziz who was also a painter.
Abdülaziz was also known for his love of art and his interest in art. Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, UKSD President Tuna, said they were very happy to organize such an exhibition.
Tuna said the paintings had been bought 6 months before and they were found to match with the other paintings of Abdülaziz in the National Palace Collection.
An exclusive museum for National Collections opened in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Museum last year. The museum is home to 43,000 artifacts dating back to the 19th century and exhibits the daily life in the empire’s palaces.
Curator of the ‘Sultan Abdülaziz with paintings,’
exhibtion Mehmet Lütfi Şen (above) says Ottoman
sultans always dealt with art and painting.
Noting that this was a first in the history of Turkish painting, Tuna said, there were many paintings that were thought to belong to Chlebowski, however they were subsequently found not to. In the years 1864-1876 Chlebowski was master painter for Sultan Abdülaziz and took up residence in Constantinople. It is known that Chlebowski became popular with the Sultanate. During his services, he had obtained permission to bring with him a large Icon of Mother of God Leading our Way, which had been rescued from an Odegon Monastery in 1453. He had come across it in one of the magazines with old relics, unheeded by the Ottoman keeper. This account is certified in a letter by the Comité National Polonais a Constantinople, dated June 27, 1938.
In 1876 he moved to Paris. In 1881 he returned permanently to Krakow. The subject matter of his watercolors and oil paintings is diverse. He painted images of historical battles related to the history of Turkey, oriental genre scenes, landscapes, and portraits of Sultans.
The curator of the exhibition Mehmet Lütfi Şen said Ottoman sultans always dealt with art and painting. “Today we discover a painter after 137 years.”
It is known that Abdülaziz took painting lessons when he was young, said Şen.
“In the past Abdülaziz never signed his own paintings and this is known for sure and we know that he had given his paintings to Polish painter Stanislav Chlebowski, while he was leaving Istanbul,” said Şen, adding that Chlebowski had kept them.
Later on these paintings were unearthed at National Museum of Poland, he added. “The museum has bought these paintings from the painter’s family and added them to their collection and we have traced them and obtained the permissions to display them.”
After we saw the sketches we discovered that these paintings were part of the Abdülaziz paintings because they matched with the national museum collections of Turkey, added Şen, noting that experts also worked on them and discovered that these paintings belonged to Abdülaziz.
Ömer Faruk Şerifoğlu, an art history expert said the oil on canvas paintings belonged to Abdülaziz.
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