Artist: Carel Allard (1648-1709), publisher (copy after)
Title: Smyrne
Date: about 1700
School: Dutch, Dutch XVIIth-century
Medium: engraving and etching
Dimensions: 182 x 218mm (plate), 284 x 372 (support)
Watermark: Arms of Amsterdam (see image below)
Inscriptions/marks: Title in a scroll between the two figures in the image <<SMYRNE>>, publisher’s name scratched in the image lower centre <<C. Allard exc +.___>>, on the image in ink lower right <<467>>
Condition: fine condition on laid paper.
Description: A view of the port of Smyrna, now Izmir in Turkey, with a man and a woman in local costume. A reduced contemporary copy. Compared with the larger impression in the British Museum there are several details missing from this impression in addition to the engraved publisher’s details, such as the cross decoration on the woman’s left shoe and the reins on the second camel. The engraving is much cruder.
Reference: The original was produced to illustrate a popular town and costume book of various towns and cities of the world entitled Orbis habitabilis oppida et vestitus, published by the Amsterdam publisher Carel Allard in about 1698 and illustrated with 100 engravings and etching, often hand-coloured.
Provenance: Dunbar Sloane, Wellington 2023
