A Closer Look:
Osman Hamdi Bey
The Hearth
Among the highlights of the 19th Century and British Impressionist Art Sale is a beautiful and rare harem scene by the Turkish master Osman Hamdi Bey. The Hearth is presented to the open market at auction for the first time and represents a wonderful opportunity for the collector to acquire a work from a pivotal point of the artist’s career.
The first of Hamdi Bey’s lauded harem scenes, The Hearth is a foundational work in which we see many of the artist’s trademarks for the first time and is arguably his first truly successful Orientalist painting.
The harem
Osman Hamdi Bey depicts the harem, a place which he would have been familiar with, from the point of view of a ‘cultural insider’. As an Eastern artist painting for a Western audience, he rejects the cruder cliches and overt eroticism of western Orientalism, for a softer, more intimate version.
The centre of the composition is dominated by a fireplace, from which the painting takes its title. An intricately tiled yet imaginary setting, Hamdi Bey takes inspiration from the interiors of such buildings as the Topkapı palace the mosque of Rüstem Pasha, which he would have been familiar with given his role as museum director of the Imperial Museum, and passion for architecture and archaeology.
The male figure reclines in a relaxed, leisurely pose before the hearth; he enjoys a tobacco pipe and is opulently dressed in clothes of rich, shining white. Hamdi Bey occasionally modelled for artists during his time in Paris and subsequently formed a habit of painting himself into his own work. It has been suggested that the male figure here may be modelled on the artist himself.
Osman Hamdi Bey in his studio circa 1900.
Osman Hamdi Bey in his studio circa 1900.
His female attendant serves coffee, delicately gripping the typical, tiny handleless porcelain cup (fincan). She gently averts her gaze and adopts a respectful yet relaxed pose. Hamdi Bey pays equal attention to her clothing as to the man's, depicting her in luxuriously golden interior dress.
As well as conventionally signing and dating the work in the upper left, Osman Hamdi Bey completes The Hearth with a wooden plaque, the calligraphy of which represents a secret signature and date. This is the first known example of this trademark motif, a hidden element to the work the significance of which his western audience would not have understood.
Osman Hamdi Bey
Kahve Ocağı (The Hearth), 1879.
Estimate £1,200,000-£1,800,000.
19th Century and British Impressionist Art
26 March | London, New Bond Street
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