Jean Baptiste Vanmour

On 14 September 1727, the new Dutch ambassador Cornelis Calkoen came to Topkapı Palace in Istanbul to present his credentials to Sultan Ahmed III. His retinue entered unarmed, sat through a session of the imperial council, ate a meal offered by the grand vizier and was dressed in kaftans before being led to the sultan. Calkoen wanted every stage on record, so he hired a painter who had already lived in the city for nearly 30 years, Jean Baptiste Vanmour.

Vanmour came from Valenciennes in northern France and arrived in 1699 with the French ambassador, the Marquis de Ferriol. He stayed for the rest of his life. His pictures of Ottoman costume became a book of a hundred engravings, published in Paris in 1714 and reissued in at least five languages.

Calkoen ended up with some 70 paintings by Vanmour and his studio, now at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Beyond the ceremony they show the city. The grand vizier rides across the Atmeydanı, the old Hippodrome square. Dervishes turn in tall felt hats. A mother leads her small daughter to school for the first time, a servant carrying the girl's embroidery frame.

In 1730 a revolt led by Patrona Halil, a sailor of Albanian origin, forced Ahmed III to abdicate. Calkoen owned a picture of the rebels being killed two months later, the only painting in his collection that Vanmour signed, on a stone at the left.