Twenty Years Under The Reign of Abdülhamid

Fausto Zonaro was born in 1854 in Masi-Padua in Italy. In his youth he worked as an apprentice in the construction of walls and buildings, and later, embracing his interest in painting, he studied at the Lendinara Art School in the city of Padua. After working in Naples and other cities, he settled in Venice, where he met Elisa Pante, one of his students at the Palazzo Pesaro. The artist, together with Elisa, went to Istanbul in 1891, a city that, with the passion of an Orientalist, had aroused his interest, and there they married in 1892. Through being acquainted with Münir Pasha, the Minister for Protocol at Yıldız Palace, he had the opportunity to meet Osman Hamdi Bey, and his works became known to Abdülhamid II, who appointed him as Court Artist (Ressam-ı Hazret-i Şehriyârî) in 1896. Between 1896 and 1909, the artist made many paintings for the Palace and for private collectors, and he became the popular face of Istanbul. For many years, he hosted local and foreign visitors at his permanent exhibition in his villa in Akaretler. When Abdülhamid II was overthrown and those on his payroll had begun to be purged (October 1909), the title of Court Artist was taken from Zonaro by the new government. Zonaro remained hugely disappointed and he left Istanbul, with his family, on March 20th 1910. He stayed in Rome for a while when he returned to Italy, and he later settled in San Remo, where he died in 1929.