Constantinople from the Golden Horn, Antique Allom Panorama, circa 1850

About this sheet

This original antique steel engraving, Constantinople from the Golden Horn, is a plate from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, published in London by Peter Jackson about 1850. The sheet shows a wide panorama of Constantinople seen across the shipping of the Golden Horn, caiques and a laden lighter in the foreground, the domes and minarets of the imperial mosques ranged along the skyline and each of the principal landmarks named in small lettering across the top of the plate.

The plate comes from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated: Constantinople and its Environs, with the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, drawn from nature by Thomas Allom with descriptions by the Reverend Robert Walsh, chaplain to the British embassy at the Ottoman Porte. The steel plates were first cut for Fisher, Son and Company in the late eighteen thirties and printed again for this edition by Peter Jackson at the Caxton Press in Angel Street, Saint Martin's le Grand, London, about 1850.

This is the frontispiece of the volume and the only sheet in it that names its own landmarks, so it doubles as a key to the whole series: a buyer can read off the Mosque of Bajazet, the Seraskier's Tower, Yeni Jami, the Solimanie, the mosques of Mehmed and Selim and the Tower of Galata in the order they stand along the ridge. The technique is steel engraving. A steel plate yields many thousands of impressions without the softening that copper suffers after a few hundred, and that is what made illustrated travel books on this scale possible. The result is the very fine close worked line seen here, particularly in the skies and the water, and an impression that stays crisp across the whole edition. A sheet of this size hangs well in a simple dark frame with a generous off-white mount, and a row of them along a hall or above a stair makes the kind of quiet topographical sequence that collectors of travel engraving look for.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the right and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

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.