Procession of the Sultan in the Street of Tombs at Eyoub, circa 1850

About this sheet

This original antique steel engraving, Procession of the Sultan in the Street of Tombs at Eyoub, is a plate from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, published in London by Peter Jackson about 1850. The sheet shows the Sultan's procession moving along the street of tombs at Eyoub, mounted guards and officers in the new European cut uniforms of the reform, the grilled tomb chambers and carved headstones lining the way and a crowd pressed back against the walls.

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.

Eyup holds the shrine of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari and was the place where each new sultan was girded with the sword of Osman, so a procession here is a state occasion. The uniforms date the scene to the dress reforms of Mahmud the Second after 1826, when the court and the army changed out of Ottoman dress. 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.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, left and right edges. A few small foxing spots 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.