Gwendolyn Collaço (Harvard University)

Cosmopolitan Albums from the Bazaars of Istanbul: Products of Global Networks, ca. 1650-1800.

Gwendolyn Collaco’s PhD project explores the urban market in Ottoman Istanbul for single-figure paintings during the mid-17^th to 18^th centuries. Bazaar artists catered these artworks towards audiences of both Europeans and Ottomans, who bought these paintings for their respective social circles. She begins by examining the sources of inspiration for these paintings and the processes of production used by their artists. Gwendolyn Colacc traces how this genre of painting adapted artworks, which were transported into Istanbul from the Safavid and Mughal Empires. Thus it reflects the global networks of trade and exchange available to the urban populace during this period. Next she illustrates how the owners and compilers participate in artistic expression through the act of compiling these paintings into albums. Specifically in the Ottoman context, Gwendolyn Collaco emphasizes how local literati collected bazaar paintings to use in poetic and story-telling recitations. For albums taken abroad, she analyzes how these paintings were adapted into European turquerie. Thus the project shifts the discourse of Ottoman painting away from the palace walls to illustrate the impact of non-royal painting on urban imaginations both in the empire and abroad.