The Favorite Odalique, Antique Orientalist Harem Engraving, circa 1850
€ 240
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
circa 1850
Mapmaker / artist
Thomas Allom (after); engraved by J. Jenkins
Publisher
Peter Jackson, late Fisher, Son and Co., London and Paris
Technique
Steel Engraving
Coloring
Uncolored
Sheet size
27 × 21 cm (10.6 × 8.3 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14186-1-36
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom, left and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.
About this sheet
This original antique steel engraving shows Favorite Odalique, a plate from the first volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, published in London by Peter Jackson about 1850. A young woman in a jeweled headdress and a long embroidered robe standing at the center of a harem chamber while attendants dress her hair and arrange her train, a mirror and a jewel casket on the low table and a fountain playing in the garden beyond the arcade.
The plate comes from 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 sheets were engraved on steel 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, with a Liverpool address at Post Office Place, about 1850. The technique is steel engraving, worked by a named London engraver from Allom's own drawing, and the credit lines are printed in the lower corners of the plate with the publisher's imprint centered beneath. Impressions from this series are uncolored as issued, and this sheet has never been colored later.
Together with the Interior of a Harem this is one of the two great figure subjects in the series, and it is the better drawn of the two, a standing full length with the fall of the embroidered robe worked out in detail across the lower half of the plate. 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 a quiet topographical sequence.
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom, left and top 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.
