Album of Turkish Watercolours

£50,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

A splendid album, signed and dated by the artist, with original artwork, and historically significant. Joseph Cardero made the album during his stay in Istanbul, as part of the first Embassy sent by the Spanish Crown to the Ottoman Empire. Spain had been in a virtual state of war with the Ottoman Empire since the 16th century, thus, virtually no contact between them had occurred. For the first time, by the 18th century, both powers signed a peace treatise called the Treatise of Constantinople (1782); its aim was peace, amity, and commerce. As per its political significance, it may be regarded as the greatest external affair´s achievement of King Charles III. By 1784, the King ordered an Embassy to visit the Turkish capital, and Commander Don Gabriel Aristizabal (1743 – 1805) was appointed as its leader; in 1790 a work narrating the journey was published under the title Viage a Constantinopla. This embassy is important for two reasons, it was to open the Levant for commerce with Spain, and it would be the first recognizance by the Spanish of the Ottoman Empire. Aristizabal presented to the King himself a relation of what he had seen on the embassy. Cardero (1766 – 1811) was a Spanish draughtsman, artist, explorer and mapmaker; by 1785 he was working in Valetta (Malta), probably when the expeditionary embassy recruited him, to travel to the Mediterranean. Very little is known about him from his early years, however this album shows an artistic skill that would soon gain him a p

• Binding: Hardcover

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