Dorotheum in Vienna is offering his Portrait of a Turkish Lady from Constantinople from 1881 in its sale of October 23. In that year the highly respected artist was appointed director of the Imperial Ottoman Museum. He had trained in Paris and is regarded as the founder of modern Turkish painting, combining Occidental and Oriental motifs and fashions.
The portrait of the veiled lady is almost identical to a larger painting sold by Sotheby’s in London in May 2008 for £3m. The 3ft 11in x 2ft (1.2m x 60cm) canvas in Vienna, which has been consigned by an Italian collector, has a guide of €1.5m-1.8m.
As reported in News Digest last week (ATG No 2411), a record price for Hamdi Bey was set recently at Bonhams when a painting of a lady reading estimated at £600,000-800,000 was knocked down for £5.7m. It had been bought by a member of the UK vendor’s family at a Sotheby’s auction in April 1976 for £1900.
