The painting of one of the pioneer orientalist artists, martinus rorbye: "A Turkish notary drawing up a marriage contract in front of the kilic ali pasha mosque, tophane, constantinople"

Abstract

Scriveners, who committed themselves to official and private petition writing in the Ottoman Empire, took on an important task in the social life as well. They usually became the subject of 19th century Orientalist painters as they were mobile and worked in crowded environments that people had an easy access to. The scriveners were depicted near mosques, coffee houses or ports. In the respect, Danish artist Martinus Rorbye's painting named "A Turkish Notary Drawing Up a Marriage Contract in front of the Kilic Ali Pasha Mosque Tophane, Constantinople" is one of the first and pioneer examples of them. In the first part of the article, brief information about the scriveners is given. Then it is written about the places that they worked as Tophane and Kilic Ali Pasha Mosque. In the second part of article, the life and art of Martinus Rorbye is discussed by considering the scriveners in the Orientalist painting. Then the main painting of this article is explained and comparisoned with the other some scrivener paintings. Rorbye has some similarities to Orientalist painters. But also Rorbye differs from other Orientalist painters of the time due to his subject selection, composition layout, and use of figures and colours. In addition to these, he was one of the pioneer Orientalist painters as E.Delacroix. At the end of the article, Rorbye and his painting are interpreted and emphasized of the importance, pioneering role and the place in the art history. For this article, it is used national and international libraries and archives, English, Danish and Turkish sources.