Antoine Ignace Melling

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Artist and voyager, Antoine Ignace Melling, (Anton Ignaz Melling) (1763-1831), was Born in Lorraine and trained in architecture and painting. At the age of 19, he went to Istanbul, (Constantinople), to seek his fortune, as part of the Russian Ambassador's retinue and household - drawing pictures for various dignitaries - and during his tenure in this position, he was introduced to Princess Hatice, (Hatice Sultan); the sister and confidant of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III.

At the Princesses suggestion, Melling was employed in the position of Imperial Architect to Selim III. The princess commissioned Melling to design something similar the splendid garden of Baron Hubsch, minister of Saxony, in 1795, for her palace at Ortakeï. Delighted with the result, she then asked Melling to redecorate the interior of the palace and, subsequently, commissioned him to design for her a completely new palace in the neoclassical style at Defterdarburnu.

In the visual arts, Melling is counted among the “Levantines”; the term being used in its broadest sense as none of these famed artists were born in Turkey and only a few died there. However they all spent a considerable part of their lives in the Levant and their legacy is associated with that of the Levant.

Melling Pasha's position as Imperial Architect gave him a privileged opportunity to observe the Ottoman court - more familiar with the Ottoman palace than any Western artist since Gentile Bellini. Of his eighteen years there, making many detailed drawings of the sultan's palaces, Ottoman society, and Istanbul and its environs – he is rightly known as "the unrivalled painter of the Bosphorus". As stated in an anonymous travelogue written in about 1817, "Sometimes these pictures contain an excessive amount of detail in an endeavour to reflect the reality but they depict the modern buildings and landscapes of this city, every view of which is attractive, in a manner more successful than that achieved in the most sensitive written descriptions" - in a far more realistic manner than the work of Matthäus Merian (1593-1650). Merian’s panorama engraving of Istanbul, published in 1653 and extensively reprinted, whilst claiming to represent a view of Istanbul from the heights of Galata and Beyoglu, depicts Istanbul as a City consisting only of minarets.

Within a year of returning to Paris in 1803, Melling published a prospectus for the Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor. By 1809 he had set up an engraving studio for the purpose of reproducing completed images of his drawings. A series of fascicles were sent out to subscribers, between 1809 and 1819. Examples of etchings with engraving by Schroeder, Duplessi-Bertaux, and Pigeot after Melling, with later professional hand-colouring, (each worth $2-3,000 in 2006), include:

• Cérémonie d'une noce torque.
• Fontaine de Sari-Yéri, près Buyuk-Déré.
• Intérieur d'une partie du Harem du Grand-Seigneur.
• Kiâhd-Hané, Lieu de Plaisance du Grand-Seigneur.
• Prairie de Buyck-Déré; Sur la Rive Européenne du Bosphore, à quatre lieues de Constantinople.
• Vue d l'un des Bend, dans la forêt de Belgrade.
• Vue d'Aïnali-Kavak près de l'Arsenal, dans l'intérieur du port de Constantinople.
• Vue d'une partie de la Ville de Constantinople, avec la pointe Sérail, Prise du Faubourg de Péra, Résidence des Ministres Etrangers.
• Vue de Hounkiar-Iskelesi, Echelle du Grand-Seigneur.
• Vue de Kara-Aghatch, au fond du port.
• Vue de l'embouchure de la mer Noire.
• Vue de l'Isle de Ténédos, dans l'Archipel.
• Vue de la grande Arcade de l'aqueduc de Baktché-Kieuï, et du vallon de Buyuk-Dèrè.
• Vue de la partie Orientale de Buyuk-Dèrè, Sur la Rive Européenne du Bosphore.
• Vue de la première cour de serial.
• Vue de la Seconde Cour Intérieure du Sérail.
• Vue de la Ville de Scutari, prise à Péra.
• Vue du Champ des Morts, près Péra.
• Vue du château des Sept-Tours, et de la ville de Constantinople, telle qu'elle se présente du côte de la mer de Marmara.
• Vue du grand Bend, dans la forêt de Belgrade.
• Vue du Village Tarapia, sur la rive européenne du Bosphore.
• Vue générale de Constantinople, prise du chemin de Buyuk-Déré.

The Ertug & Kocabiyik facsimile edition of the complete Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor was produced from the original "elephant folio", an unfolded first edition in the collection of Ahmet Ertug. The technical aspects of the project were done under the supervision of Ertug in Switzerland by facsimile specialists. This facsimile edition was available in two different bindings. One is bound in Japanese cloth and the other is a very limited edition of only 50 copies bound in leather - intended for connoisseurs of fine books. The binding and decoration of all the leather-bound copies were done by hand. The book includes 48 views of Constantinople in the late 18th century and also three maps. The facsimile publishers also offered 25 copies of an edition of the unfolded image plates presented in a leather-bound case. The text for this edition is bound separately and presented in a pocket in the leather case. The descriptions of the views in the facsimile edition are in the original French, with an English translation.

The journey undertaken by Melling in 1812, to the Netherlands (under French rule at the time), was documented not only by a large number of surviving drawings but also by the letters he sent to his family in Paris. The joys and inconveniences of that journey, which took him as far as the Hanseatic towns, "are reported in a lively style". The letter-writer also dwells on various aspects of Dutch life. Not only the monuments and inhabitants of large cities like Rotterdam and Amsterdam made an impression on the artist - so did the overwhelming appeal of a little village like Broek in Waterland and the peaceful Sunday atmosphere of Zwolle. The illustrated and annotated letters preceded by an introduction, read like a travel diary intended for a Voyage pittoresque, that was never published.

On the strength of his work on Constantinople, Melling was appointed landscape painter to the Emperor Napoleon's wife, the Empress Josephine. In 1821, he was sent by the French government to document the Pyrenees and demonstrate that their natural beauty rivalled that of the Alps. 72 fine aquatints, based on original sepia watercolors, were issued together with text by Joseph Antoine Cervini as: Voyage Pittoresque dans les Pyrénées Françaises et les Départements Adjacents, (Picturesque Travels in the French Pyrenees and the Adjacent Areas), Treuttel and Wurtz, Paris: 1826-30, (Bibliographie nationale Française, BnF, The French national Bibliography ISBN 2-911715-12-8). Examples of hand-coloured aquatints from this work, (each worth $600 in 2006), include:

• Port de Venasque
• Le Pont D'Espangne
• Le Lac de Gaube
• Vue Prise de l'Hotel Gassion a Pau
• Le Perthus et le Fort de Bellegarde
• Le Lac de Secule jo et ses Cascades
• Grotte de Mas-d'Azil
• Site de la Valleze d'Aure
• Ermitage de Saint-Antoine de Galamus
• Fontestorbe

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman State, correspondence between Antoine Ignace Melling (1763-1801) and Hatice Sultana was reviewed in a paper by Fréderic Hitzel - at the 1999 International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World. The International Congress organised by IRCICA in cooperation with the Turkish Historical Society and the Turkish Society for History of Science, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. The congress took place under the patronage and in presence of the President of Turkey. 175 scholars and researchers from 28 countries participated in it. The papers presented - subsequently revised by their authors - are published in three separate volumes: Arabic, (Vol. 1), English, (Vol. 2), and Turkish, (Vol. 3), respectively.

Melling is included in the Sabancı University Faculty of Arts & Social Science course, Major Works of Ottoman Culture, (HUM 203). This course, "focuses on a selected few masterpieces of Ottoman artistic and literary production, picked on the basis of not only their high aesthetic qualities, but also their representativeness across different genres and historical periods".

[edit] References

• Antoine-Ignace Melling, Lettres de Hollande et des villes anséatiques. La correspondance d'un artiste-voyageur avec sa famille à Paris en 1812. (Correspondence of an artist-traveller with his family in Paris in 1812). Presented and annotated by C Boschma, Waanders, Zwolle/Fondation Custodia, Paris-1997.

• Report on the Ertug & Kocabiyik facsimile edition of the complete Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des Rives du Bosphor, by Souren Melikian, Istanbul International Herald Tribune, Friday, December 22, 2006.

• Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore,(Paperback, 350 pages), Antoine Ignace Melling, Adamant Media Corporation, (in French), ISBN-10 0543973182 ISBN-13 978-0543973184.

• Correspondence between Antoine Ignace Melling (1763-1801) and Hatice Sultan, Fréderic Hitzel, Session VII, C. Papers in English (Vol. 2): Proceedings of the International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World on the Occasion of the 700th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Ottoman State, Istanbul, 12-15 April 1999 in 3 volumes. 2000-2002, IRCICA Publications. ISBN 92-9063-090-6