“Costumi Turchi e Grechi fatti in Constantinopoli 1790”

Description

This illustrated album provides a comprehensive catalogue of the costumes of the late 18th
century within the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman costume albums are key examples of portable
Mediterranean objects. Produced as bound collections of paintings on paper, each representing a
figure, with some variation, from the Ottoman court, military, professions, and civil society such as
those presented in the current album. Although some albums moved within an Ottoman circle, many
of them circulated through trans-imperial networks in and across the Mediterranean, benefitting from
the Ottoman Empire’s advantageous location along the eastern Mediterranean. Produced from the
sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, the small number of complete surviving examples illustrate
that they were often as a result of the curiosity of foreign and usually diplomatic visitors, who hired a
local artist to study and capture what he had seen or presented as diplomatic gifts.
As with most costume albums, the artist who painted the images of our album is not named, but
identified as “Done by a Greek, self-taught”. The illustrations are finely rendered, done with care and
attention to aesthetic conventions. The close similarities between the Victoria and Albert museum’s
Ottoman costume album (inv. no. D.92-1895) which is also assigned to an unnamed Greek artist and
the paintings in the present album make it very likely that both albums are by the same artist, or a
student of the studio or circle of Konstantin Kapidagli.

Published

Sotheby’s. The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part 1, 2022, lot 231

Provenance

The Hon. Henry Rogers Broughton, later 2nd Lord Fairhaven (1900–1973)
Sotheby’s. The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part 1, 2022, lot 231

Note on the Provenance

Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840 -1909), began his professional life by selling paraffin
in the local market in Fairhaven, Massachusetts—an ocean away from Anglesey Abbey. In 1861,
Rogers turned his attention from paraffin to Pennsylvania, where oil had been discovered two
years before. In 1874, Rogers sold his operation to John D. Rockefeller, and it became a part of
Standard Oil. Rogers stayed on as a director, and eventually became vice president in 1890. By his
death in 1909, he had amassed a staggering fortune of $100 million.
In 1895, Roger's recently widowed daughter, Cara, met Urban Broughton, a British civil engineer,
who had been sent to the United States as a representative of the hydro-pneumatic sewerage
system of Isaac Shone. Urban and Cara quickly fell in love and were married in November of
1895. Their first son, Huttleston, was born in 1896, and Henry in 1900. The Broughtons remained
in the United States until 1912. When they settled in England, Urban served as a Conservative MP
for Preston from 1915 until 1928, and, in the same fashion as his father-in-law, used his wealth and
influence for the public good. His philanthropy was recognized with a peerage. Sadly, however,
Urban died in 1929, before the title could be conferred. Instead, it passed directly to his widow
and to his eldest son.
In 1926, Huttleston, 1st Baron Fairhaven, and Henry, 2nd Baron Fairhaven, purchased the Anglesey
Abbey estate, primarily for shooting. They agreed that whoever married first should sell his share
in the estate to the other. Thus, when Henry wed Diana Fellowes in 1932, the 1st Lord Fairhaven
became the sole owner of Anglesey Abbey, and set about cultivating the impressive gardens and
other facets of the estate. Not to be outdone by his brother, Henry amassed one of the most
important collections of botanical art in the world. He bought Bakeham House, near Windsor, and
later South Walsham Hall, Norfolk. The Abbey was left to the National Trust upon Huttleston’s
death in 1966, and Henry’s renowned collection of art was donated to the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, collection to the Museum upon his death in 1973.