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The audience with Sultan Mustafa III c.1763-9

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Date

c.1763-9

Description

A watercolour showing Sultan Mustafa III giving an audience to the English Ambassador in Topkapi Palace, Constantinople. The ambassador and his suite are wearing Turkish robes. This watercolour shows the British ambassador (likely to be Henry Grenville), dressed in a yellow fur-lined robe, during an audience with Sultan Mustafa III (r.1754–74) in Topkapi Palace, Constantinople, which was the official residence of the Ottoman Sultan. RCIN 917142 depicts the Ambassador meeting the Grand Vizier, which took place before his meeting with the Sultan and for which the Ambassador was wearing Western clothes. This watercolour and its pair, 917142, were made as a result of the English artist Francis Smith accompanying Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore (1732–71) on his tour of the east in 1763–4, which included Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire. The watercolours made by Smith were used as the basis for engravings which illustrated Lord Baltimore’s account of his travels entitled 'Tour to the East in the Years 1763 and 1764', first published in 1767.
Descriptive Medium: 'Watercolour', 'watercolour'
Additional Makers: Attributed to the school of Vanmour, Jean Baptiste (1671-1737) (artist)