The Journey of an Ottoman Painting | Emily Neumeier

E081 | Osman Hamdi Bey is recognized today as the foremost artist of the late-Ottoman period. Yet, in his time, it was his unique access to the ancient past as the head of Istanbul's archaeology museum that drew the interest of his Western contemporaries. In this episode, Emily Neumeier retraces the story of a rare Osman Hamdi Bey painting (At the Mosque Door, 1890 - click for high res image) that turned up in the Penn archaeology museum and explains what it tells us about art, artifacts, and diplomacy during the late-Ottoman era.