Fausto Zonaro (Italian, 1854–1929)
Dervish ceremony , c. 1910
Oil on Canvas
100 x 201.3 cm. (39.4 x 79.3 in.)
Private collection
The Dervish ceremony was painted in Turkey, shortly before the artist returned back to Italy in 1910. Istanbul was for Zonaro the place where his artistic style evolved and matured, and the canvases that he painted during these years are probably the most interesting works of his artistic career. Zonaro grew well accustomed to the customs and clothing of the Turks, as well as the true religion essence of the dervishes, represented in this painting.
Represented in this painting are Elisa Pante, wife of Zonaro, their daughter, probably Mafalda, and the artist himself praying amongst the followers. Watched by European ladies, a seyh of the Rufai order is about to heal several older men, prostrate on the floor, by walking on them. Nearby young girls also wait to be healed. On the left chanting Rufai dervishes include the artist, himself a dervish, fifth from the left. On the right Zonaro has shown, contrary to probability in a Rufai tekke, a Mevlevi dervish playing the neyh or flute. More on this painting
Fausto Zonaro
Mercato/ Market
Liguria?
Oil on canvas
cm 26.5 x 17.4
Private collection
Fausto Zonaro
Al Sole (In the Sun)
Oil on canvas
51.5 x 35 cm
Private collection
Fausto Zonaro was born in Masi, in the Austrian Empire. He was the eldest child of the mason Maurizio and his wife Elisabetta Bertoncin. At a young age, Fausto showed a great ability at drawing. With his parents’ consent, he enrolled first in the Technical Institute in Lendinara, then in the Cignaroli Academy in Verona under Napoleone Nani. Fausto opened a small art school and studio in Venice, but traveled often to Naples as well. He felt no clear direction in his life at that time.
The turning point in Zonaro’s career occurred however in 1891, when he fell in love with Elisabetta Pante, a pupil of his in Venice, And together they traveled to Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1892, Zonaro and Pante married, and lived in the Constantinople neighborhood of Pera.
Fausto Zonaro
On The The Galata Bridge, Constantinople
Oil on canvas
71 by 65cm., 28 by 25½in
Private collection
The Galata Bridge is a bridge that spans the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey. From the end of the 19th century in particular, the bridge has featured in Turkish literature, theater, poetry and novels. The term "Galata Bridge" is actually a collective reference to a successive series of bridges linking Eminönü and Beyoğlu since the early 19th century. The current bridge, the fifth known by that name, was built in 1994. More on The Galata Bridge
Fausto Zonaro
The shore at Galata, Constantinople
Oil on panel
9 7/8 x 17 1/8 in. (25.2 x 43.5 cm.)
Private collection
Executed with a profoundly Impressionist plein-air technique, characterised by a highly keyed palette of bright blue, pink and orange, Zonaro has sought above all to evoke the hustle and bustle of the busy port. The city's key monuments are evoked rather than described, rising above the steam of the jockeying ships and the shimmering haze of warm light, the Hagia Sophia modelled in blocks of light and shade. Zonaro has paid great attention to capturing the exact atmospheric conditions; the long shadow thrown across the foreground and the sunlight on the facades in the background indicate a late afternoon setting, while the carefully modulated blues of the water and billowing sails in the background clearly indicate a breeze blowing up the Bosphorus from the South.
The juxtaposition of a modern industrial port scene with Constantinople's ancient landmarks evokes the city's position at a cross-roads between the old and the new, between East and West, an impression reinforced by the visual metaphor of the ships' funnels and masts, which echo the minarets in the background. More on The shore at Galata
Fausto Zonaro
Banks of the Bosphorus, Pontile di Scutari, Istanbul
Oil on panel
7 x 11¼ in. (17.8 x 28.5 cm.)
Private collection
Zonaro was primarily a painter of modern Turkish life, and his aim was to record the daily activities and traditions of the Turkish people, rendered in the light of Constantinople and the Bosphorus.
Executed with a profoundly Impressionist plein-air technique, the present lot is characterised by a palette of bright blues, pinks and creamy tones. The city’s main monuments of Seraglio Point can be clearly spotted in the background: Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace and the Galata Tower at far right. More on this painting
Fausto Zonaro
On the Golden Horn
Oil on panel
5¼ x 8½ in. (13.3 x 21.6 cm.)
Private collection
The Golden Horn is a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. As a natural estuary that connects with the Bosphorus Strait at the point where the strait meets the Sea of Marmara, the waters of the Golden Horn help define the northern boundary of the peninsula constituting "Old Istanbul". More On the Golden Horn
Mercato d'Oriente/ Eastern market
Oil on canvas
60×80 cm
Private collection
This work dates back to the last period of the artist, when he returned from the successes of Constantinople, and he was commissioned works of an orientalist nature in Liguria.
Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)
Fishermen on the Bosphorus at dusk
Oil on canvas
55 x 100 cm. (20½ x 39¼ in.)
Private collection
While in Istanbul, Zonaro became friends with Osman Hamdi Bey, founder of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and the two often went fishing on the Bosphorus. Zonaro describes a fishing trip similar to the one depicted above:
"Our boat filled with fish, each weighing three kilos. When Hamdi Bey asked if that was sufficient, I said that I could feed my entire neighbourhood in Taksim with so many fish. That day, after eating our fill with Hamdi Bey, I took the remainder home in a basket and we ate fish for the next week. The Bosphorus had begun to feast me not only with its blue hues, but also with its delicious fish." More on this painting
Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)
Il reggimento imperiale di Ertugrul sul ponte di Galata/ The Imperial Regiment of the Ertugrul on the Galata Bridge, c. 1901
Oil on canvas
Dolmabahçe Palace
Ertuğrul Cavalry Regiment, Imperial Guard, crossing the Galata Bridge in Constantinople (now Istanbul), 1896. The smart dark blue coat, pants and tarbush or 'fez' was the basis of the Ottoman uniform for 40 years until it was replaced by the new khaki uniform and kabalak cloth helmet in 1909.
Throughout the 19th century the Ottoman Army (and Navy) underwent numerous reforms designed to try to restore military parity with the other great powers. These reforms enjoyed mixed success, with some progress made in re-organising and re-equipping the Ottoman combat arms on European lines, but less so when it came to developing the specialist technical support, medical services and logistical capabilities needed to sustain them in a large-scale modern war. This was a reflection of some of the wider problems hampering Ottoman society as a whole. The lack of modern infrastructure, education and domestic industrial development presented a huge obstacle to implementing any major reforms. More on the Ertuğrul Cavalry Regiment
In Constantinople, over time he gained patronage in aristocratic circles. Munir Pasha, the Minister of Protocol, who invited him to visit Yıldız Palace and meet the prestigious local artist Osman Hamdi Bey. He was employed in teaching painting to the Pasha's wife, and in this way Zonaro and Pante got to know the important artistic figures of Istanbul of that time. In 1896 he was nominated as the court painter thanks to the intervention of the Russian ambassador who had presented the ruling sultan Abdulhamid II with Zonaro’s work Il reggimento imperiale di Ertugrul sul ponte di Galata (in English: The Imperial Regiment of the Ertugrul on the Galata Bridge) (See above), which Abdulhamid II had then purchased.
Fausto Zonaro (1854 - 1929)
Young Girl
Oil Painting on Canvas
109 X 142 cm
Fausto Zonaro
La Sultana
Oil on canvas
64.5 by 85.5cm., 25¼ by 33¾in.
La Sultana was painted in Zonaro's studio in St Remo in Italy in the 1920s, a souvenir of his time in Constantinople.
Painting his chosen model - with her sultry exotic looks - in Turkish costume perhaps provided some solace and kept Zonaro's cherished memories of Turkey alive, at a time when, to satisfy popular demand, he was turning increasingly to landscape painting and views of surrounding Liguria. More on this painting
A sultana is a woman who is a member of a sultan's family; especially a sultan's wife.
Fausto Zonaro
L'INDOVINA (THE FORTUNE TELLER)
Pastel and pencil on paper laid on board
25¾ by 19¼in.
Private collection
Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)
Mehmet II conquering Constantinople, c. 1903
Oil on canvas
Height: 74 cm (29.1 in); Width: 102 cm (40.1 in)
Dolmabahçe Palace
Mehmed II was an Ottoman sultan who ruled from August 1444 to September 1446, and then later from February 1451 to May 1481. In Mehmed II's first reign, he defeated the crusade led by John Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451 he strengthened the Ottoman navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire. More on Mehmed II
Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)
Mehmed II at the siege of Constantinople
Oil on canvas
Dolmabahçe Palace, National Palaces Painting Museum
I have no further description, at this time
The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by twenty-eight warships.
Mehmet II deals a strategic blow to the Byzantine defenses with the help of the maneuver devised by his general Zaganos Pasha. Unable to cross the chain that closed the Golden Horn, the sultan ordered the construction of a taxiway north of Pera, whereby his ships could be pushed overland, avoiding the barrier.
Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)
Mehmed II, Entering to Constantinople
Oil on canvas
Dolmabahçe Palace
Ottoman's Mehmed II, the Islamic conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Various historians describe it as the end of the Middle Ages
Zonaro remained in Istanbul until 1909, when he returned to Italy following the Young Turk Revolution that overthrew his patron Abdulhamid II and the shift to constitutional monarchy. There would be no Ottoman court painter after him. He settled in Sanremo where he continued to paint small works depicting the Italian Riviera and the nearby French Riviera, alternating with nostalgic scenes of the Bosphorus to assuage his yearning for Istanbul, until his death.
Fausto Zonaro
Hamam - the bath , circa 1891-1902
Oil on panel
33 5/8 x 27 1/8 in. (85.4 x 69 cm.)
Private collection
Fausto Zonaro
La Coda del Diavolo/ The Devil's Tail
Oil on canvas
81.5 x 129 cm, framed
Private collection
The present lot is a copy of the now lost work ‘La Coda del Diavolo’ by Fausto Zonaro. The original is documented by a black and white photograph by Elisa Zonaro, which is preserved in the archive of the Comune di Masi near Padua, Zonaro’s birthplace. The painting depicts cheerfully light-hearted girls in neat summer clothes, probably playing a popular game of catch: the challenge is for the first person in the row of people to catch the last one as fast as possible without creating a break in the queue.
Fausto Zonaro is likely to have greatly appreciated this work, as he took it to Constantinople and kept it in his house during his 19-year stay. The painting is also listed in his last local exhibition in 1908-1909. After returning to Italy, the crates that included some of his paintings were exposed to rain for days at the Port of Naples. As a result, some of the paintings were destroyed irreparably. More on this painting
Allegoria della primavera/ Allegory of spring, c. 1923
Oil on canvas
180 x 304cm (70 7/8 x 119 11/16in)
Private collection
This painting was executed when Zonaro had settled in San Remo, Italy. San Remo was a cosmopolitan city that provided a source of attractive models and the surrounding countryside was an inspiration for Zonaro to return to landscape painting. These later works possess a lyricism and spontaneity of brushwork. Zonaro stated 'I can never portray the unattainable beauties that nature provides us with in their precise lighting and colours. What I strive to do is to study these things and to discover and sense their deepest realities in order that I may capture the exact moment that affects my soul. I want the scenes that I paint to be able to recite all the poetry that is inherent in the subject of the painting. More on this painting
In 1920 he separated from his wife and began living with his daughter. Nine years later, he died. He is buried in the Foce Cemetery in Sanremo. On his gravestone, underneath an Ottoman tughra, it states that Zonaro was the court painter of the Ottoman Empire. More on Fausto Zonaro
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