(Padua 1854–1929 San Remo)
Self Portrait, signed F. Zonaro, oil on canvas, 71 x 52 cm, framed, (GG)

Provenance:
From the artist to his son Faustino;
Acquired by the father of the current owner in the 1960s;
European private collection.

We are grateful to Erol Makzume for confirming the authenticity of the work on the basis of a photo.

Another, somewhat smaller version of the present lot, dated 1908 and in a private collection, is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Fausto Zonaro, from the Venice Lagoon to the shores of the Bosphorus, an Italian Painter at the Court of the Sultan, Roma, Vittoriano, 25 November – 20 December 2004, ill.p.192; and in the book Fausto Zonaro, Twenty Years under the Reign of Abdülhamid, the Memoirs and Works of Fausto Zonaro, prepared by Erol Makzume and Cesare Mario Trevigne, ill.p.254.

In this last self portrait, painted in Istanbul, he painted himself in a frontal composition. The 54-year old artist looks directly at the viewer. He wears western dress and a cap. The present lot is undated but was most probably executed in 1908, shortly before Zonaro left Istanbul for Rome before travelling on to San Remo. When Abdülhamid II was overthrown, the new government withdrew Zonaro’s title of court artist. Disappointed, he left Istanbul with his family in 1910.

Together with Pasini and De Mango, Fausto Zonaro is the artist most strongly associated with Constantinople. He was extremely popular in the city. Indeed, in his memoirs, edited by Erol Makzume and Cesare Mario Trevigne, the artist writes on 19 March 1910, the day he left Istanbul, “Local street porters came, hauled my belongings onto their shoulders and set off with their heavy burdens, and I followed. Every shopkeeper in the road came out of their shops and watched me as I passed, silent and serious, waving. As I made my way along the road, the melodious and poetic Turkish words of farewell rang out from behind the bars of the windows. And as I proceeded, rather overcome with emotions, I put my hand up to my Fez and saluted them and thanked them.” The artist was captivated by the culture and the daily life of these people: the busy market places, the public scribes and the fishermen.

Zonaro made a major contribution to the development of western art in Turkey. He is remembered as a painter of modern Turkish life.