Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky

G. Caffiero and I. Samarine, Light, Water and Sky: The Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky, London, 2012, p 210, no.142

The canvas has been lined and this is providing a stable support and has successfully secured the overall pattern of slightly raised craquelure. The paint surface has a thick and slightly discoloured varnish layer. Ultra-violet light also shows retouchings which have been applied on top of the old varnish layers. While these cover a portion of the paint surface, in particular the majority of the sky and details of the buildings, it appears that the great majority of the retouchings are perhaps larger than is really necessary and that many cover original paint which has a granular nature and a pattern of very fine pale lines of drying craquelure which are characteristic of the artist. Further tests by a professional restorer may be necessary to determine the reason as to why so many retouchings have been applied. It would appear that the picture is in stable condition despite the degree of retouching, and that there is less evidence of retouching in the figures in the foreground which appear under magnification to be in good condition. It is suspected that if all the retouchings were to be removed much of the original paint layers would be found to be intact.
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Moonrise over the Golden Horn is a masterpiece of stunning quality and unparalleled scope and its appearance at auction marks an important rediscovery for both collectors and scholars of Ivan Aivazovsky's work alike. This vibrant composition displays Aivazovsky’s peerless talent for capturing detail, atmosphere and nuance in his compositions and conveys the awe which the artist felt for the city of Constantinople, a place he returned to several times during his life and which featured frequently within his oeuvre.

As a result of a travel scholarship granted by the Imperial Academy of Arts, Aivazovsky was able to travel extensively throughout Europe where the talented artist rapidly found fame. Aivazovsky first visited Constantinople in 1845, when he accompanied the Imperial Navy’s expedition to Asia Minor, the Aegean Islands and the Levant at the request of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. Aivazovsky had already travelled with the Russian Admiralty on various military operations in the Caucasus, but this particular expedition made an exceptional impression on the artist. After arriving in Constantinople, he was immediately enthralled by the pulsing, energetic city. He wrote, ‘There is probably nowhere in the world as majestic… when you’re there you forget about Naples and Venice’ (Letter to Count Zubov, Aivazovsky: Dokumenty i materialy, Erevan, 1967, p. 90). No other city felt at once so foreign and so familiar: only two hundred miles from his native Theodosia, Aivazovsky felt at home in the busy port-town with its large Armenian community. He returned to the Ottoman capital eight times over the course of his life, and meticulously sketched panoramas of the city skyline. These sketches provided the inspiration for a number of compositions depicting the city from various viewpoints and at different times of day and night (figs. 2,3 & 5) as well as a series of over thirty compositions commissioned in 1874 by Sultan Abdülaziz (1830-1876) for the Dolmabahçe Palace, the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire. The present panoramic view of Constantinople is viewed from the Golden Horn, an inlet from the Bosphorus and a natural harbour for the city. It was Aivazovsky’s favourite vantage point thanks to a sweeping perspective which included almost every one of the city’s major architectural landmarks. The dress of the merchants at the forefront of the composition suggests that Aivazovsky was in the region of Eyüp, a district of Constantinople that extends from the Golden Horn to the shore of the Black Sea. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries this area drew a large number of Muslim refugees from Turkish communities in the Balkans and Caucasus, and soon developed into bustling commercial region, famous for its markets and cafés.

Following in the tradition of 17th century veduta painting, Aivazovsky records the architectural landscape, picked out in painstaking detail against the golden glow of the moonlight (fig.4). On the far right, perched at the top of the Third Hill, sits Fatih Mosque built between 1463-1470 and named after Fatih Sultan Mehmed. To its left is the Suleymaniye Mosque, the city’s second largest mosque, built in 1558 under the reign of Sultan Suleyman in a style which displays both Byzantine and Islamic influences. Between these buildings stands the Bayazit Tower, an eighty-five metre tall fire-watch station built in 1828 under Sultan Mahmud II. At the centre of the composition the silhouette of the primary residence for the Ottoman Sultans for over 400 years ­– the Topkapi Palace - glimmers under the moonlight on the far hill. The medieval Galata Tower is situated just north of the Golden Horn and is depicted at the far left of the canvas.

Aivazovsky uses the rising full moon not only for the dramatic illumination of his sweeping vista, but also as a mesmerising focal point. As the artist himself explained, ‘If the viewer stands before the painting… and concentrates on the moon, and gradually, while not letting the subject of the painting out of his sight, glances at the rest of the painting... and bears in mind that this is a night scene…then the viewer will find that the picture is as finished as it needs to be…”  (quoted in N.S. Barsamov, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Moscow, 1962, p. 149).