View of Istanbul from Kasımpaşa

Description

Featured in the 1836 collaborative work of Thomas Allom and Robert Walsh, this steel engraving depicts the magnificent silhouette of the historical peninsula seen from the shores of Kasımpaşa, the heart of the Ottoman navy and maritime affairs. While the composition presents the city rising into the sky with the monumental dome of the Süleymaniye Mosque in the background; it documents Istanbul's inseparable bond with the sea and its continuously functioning urban dynamics by illustrating the historical wooden bridge (Hayratiye/Unkapanı Bridge) opened by Sultan Mahmud II in 1836 in the midground, and the active civic population working on the docks and loading their boats in the foreground.