London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will open a major exhibition on the history of Istanbul on Nov. 7, bringing together more than 200 objects that span some 1,600 years of the city’s art, architecture and daily life, Hürriyet reported on Oct. 13.
"Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires" will run until May 9, 2027, in galleries 38 and 39 of the V&A’s South Kensington building. It covers the period from AD 330, when Roman emperor Constantine made the city his new capital, to 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished.
Byzantine ivories and Ottoman velvets
The objects come from the V&A’s own collections as well as from lenders in Türkiye and other countries. Highlights include the Veroli Casket, a 10th-century Byzantine ivory box carved with scenes from classical mythology, and an 11th-century gold and enamel enkolpion, a pendant reliquary, made for a court official named Constantinos.
From the Ottoman era, the show features a 16th-century velvet cover woven in Bursa, Iznik tiles, textiles, jewellery, manuscripts, architectural fragments and ceremonial objects. Also on display is Osman Hamdi Bey’s 1887 painting "Ladies Taking a Walk". Osman Hamdi was a painter, archaeologist and the founder of what is now the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.
Smaller items, such as a coffee pot and a watercolour of the sultan riding to Friday prayers, are meant to evoke everyday life in the city.
Four chapters of a city
The exhibition is arranged in four sections. The first presents Constantinople as capital of the Roman Empire, the second focuses on Byzantine religious art and the third on Ottoman court culture after the conquest of 1453. The final section turns to daily life, from coffeehouses and hammams to trade, life along the Bosphorus and the city’s multicultural population, and looks at how Istanbul’s art and design influenced 19th-century Europe.
Landmarks such as the Hippodrome, Hagia Sophia and Topkapı Palace run through the narrative.
Tickets and backers
The show is organised in collaboration with Koç Holding, Türkiye’s largest industrial conglomerate, with support from the Huo Family Foundation. It is curated by Tim Stanley, with Bella Radenovic as project curator.
Standard tickets cost £25 on weekdays and £27 at weekends, according to the museum, with discounts available. Visitors planning a trip to Istanbul itself can see many related pieces at the Topkapı Palace Museum, the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Sultanahmet.
Sources
Photo: Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
