About this sheet
This is an original set of two antique steel engravings from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, published in London by Peter Jackson about 1850, sold together as a set and not available singly. The first sheet shows the towers and curtain walls of Roumeli Hissar climbing the European bank of the Bosphorus, the water busy with caiques and a larger sailing vessel standing off, and wooded hills rising behind the fortress to close the view. The second sheet shows the old towers of Anadoli Hissar at the mouth of the Goksu on the Asian bank, the wooded hill of Kandeli rising behind them, caiques on the water in the foreground and the opposite shore of the Bosphorus beyond.
They are two original sheets sold together, and the set is never split. They come from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, drawn from nature by Thomas Allom with descriptions by the Reverend Robert Walsh and published in London by Peter Jackson at the Caxton Press about 1850. Every sheet is a steel engraving of the same size, printed without color as issued, with the draftsman lettered at the lower left, the engraver at the lower right and the publisher's imprint beneath the title.
Mehmed the Second threw this fortress up in four months in 1452 at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus, directly opposite the older Anadoli Hissar, in order to cut Constantinople off from the Black Sea before the final siege. It still stands. Anadoli Hissar was built by Bayezid the First in the thirteen nineties, sixty years before Roumeli Hissar went up on the bank facing it, and the two fortresses between them closed the Bosphorus. The pair is the classic Bosphorus subject and the two plates belong together. A matched group hung together reads as one piece of furniture on a wall rather than as several small pictures, and because the sheets are the same size they frame identically and line up without compromise. Framed alike in plain dark moldings with equal mounts they suit a hall, a stair, a study or a dining room.
Even age toning throughout. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Scattered foxing in the margins of both sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
