The Silk Bazaar

Preziosi’s oeuvre, which, between his arrival in the city in 1842 and the nearly 40 ensuing years until his death, portrays the shopkeepers, merchants, vendors, soldiers, dervishes, women and the daily life on the street, reveals life in İstanbul in mid-to-late 19th century. Preziosi often depicted the figures he used in their natural setting, as part of cross-sections from the daily life. In order to reveal the essence of each scene in explicit detail, the poses and expressions of his figures are at times exaggerated to the point of caricature. The colour lithograph of this watercolour appears in the “Silk Bazaar” section of the “Stamboul Souvenir d'Orient” album published in Paris in 1861. Another copy of this work from 1857 is kept in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. The artist’s paintings on İstanbul life were among the most popular memorabilia that foreign visitors purchased. Due to this increasing demand, Preziosi created copies of a number of his compositions.