Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, Constantinople 1869–70: Public Spaces

Abstract

Abstract Polish-born, trained in Germany, with a studio in Rome and a second home in Denmark following her marriage to sculptor and academician Jens Adolf Jerichau, Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1818–81) was a true nineteenth-century cosmopolite. She painted Europe’s elite and counted Princess Alexandra, Hans Christian Andersen, Ibsen, the Grimm brothers, and Dickens among her well-wishers. She was invited by Queen Victoria to Buckingham Palace, and her portrait of Alexandra remains in the Royal Collection today. Her travelogue Brogede Rejsebilleder (Motley Images of Travel; 1881) is centered around two journeys to “the Orient” (Constantinople and Smyrna), undertaken in 1869–70 and 1874–75. The present chapters, translated by David D. Possen and introduced by Julia Kuehn, are Jerichau-Baumann’s record of the first of two journeys to Constantinople, in 1869–70. The chapters are published in two parts—“Public Spaces” and “The Harem”—in consecutive numbers of the VIJ. The painter vividly describes the sites of and life in Constantinople. Jerichau-Baumann’s temporary friendship with the young Princess Nazlı Hanım would lead to a number of paintings now considered emblematic of and unique in (female) Orientalist art. Nazlı would become a well-known literary salon hostess and arts supporter in Istanbul, Paris, Cairo, and Tunis.