Category: Center for Global and Area Studies
Image of the Modern Ottoman Sultan
August 04, 2025 Written by CAS Communication Staff
Over the course of the dynamic 19th century, the image of the Ottoman sultan maintained a complex relationship with ideas surrounding the modernisation of the Empire.
Image of the Modern Ottoman Sultan (Brill, 2025) by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History Alison Terndrup, investigates that relationship by situating the taṣvīr-i hümāyūn (imperial portrait) within the wider program of top-down modernisation movements initiated at the end of the eighteenth century under Sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807) and culminating in the Tanẓīmāt (Reorganization) era (1839–76).
The study breaks new ground by considering the use of new image-making technologies and aesthetic trends – including oil-on-canvas paintings, lithographic prints and photographs – primarily at the imperial court in Istanbul, but also at the provincial courts of the Ottoman Balkans.
