Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the piece could look; it is sold unframed unless the description says otherwise.
Kiz Koulasi, Leander's or the Maiden's Tower on the Bosphorus, circa 1850
€180
$200 · £150
Original print, not a reproduction.
Ships worldwide from the Netherlands, flat or rolled, insured and tracked. 14-day returns.
- Date
- circa 1850
- Sheet size
- 8.3 × 10.6 in (21 × 27 cm)
- Technique
- Steel Engraving
- Coloring
- Uncolored
- Condition
- Good. Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the left, right and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.
- Collection
- Harbours & ports
- Era
- 1850 and after, Steam and steel
- Stock no.
- BG-14186-2-46
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
This original antique steel engraving, Kiz Koulasi, Leander's or the Maiden's Tower on the Bosphorus, is a plate from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated, published in London by Peter Jackson about 1850. The sheet shows the Maiden's Tower standing on its rock in the middle of the water off Scutari, a lantern at its head, caiques and a larger sailing craft working past it and the shore of the city showing low beyond.
The plate comes from the second volume of The Turkish Empire Illustrated: Constantinople and its Environs, with the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, drawn from nature by Thomas Allom with descriptions by the Reverend Robert Walsh, chaplain to the British embassy at the Ottoman Porte. The steel plates were first cut for Fisher, Son and Company in the late eighteen thirties and printed again for this edition by Peter Jackson at the Caxton Press in Angel Street, Saint Martin's le Grand, London, about 1850.
Kiz Kulesi is one of the most recognizable landmarks of the Bosphorus and still the emblem of Istanbul, standing on its islet at the mouth of the strait. The English called it Leander's Tower after the wrong legend, a confusion the engraved caption preserves. The technique is steel engraving. A steel plate yields many thousands of impressions without the softening that copper suffers after a few hundred, and that is what made illustrated travel books on this scale possible. The result is the very fine close worked line seen here, particularly in the skies and the water, and an impression that stays crisp across the whole edition. A sheet of this size hangs well in a simple dark frame with a generous off-white mount, and a row of them along a hall or above a stair makes the kind of quiet topographical sequence that collectors of travel engraving look for.
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the left, right and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
