The Sublime Porte in Istanbul

Description

Featured in the 1836 collaborative work of Thomas Allom and Robert Walsh, this steel engraving depicts the Sublime Porte (Bâb-ı Âli), the political and administrative heart of the Ottoman Empire, and the Procession Kiosk (Alay Köşkü) on the right. While presenting the monumental and official face of the state in the background, the composition merges the formality of the empire with the organic rhythm of civil life in a single frame by illustrating soldiers in modernized uniforms of the era, conversing locals, and street dogs, a historical reality of Istanbul's street fabric, in the foreground.