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Lot Essay
Chlebowski was born in Podolia, the Ukraine, and began his artistic career training at the St. Petersburg Academy. His talent soon brought him recognition and he was awarded a six year Imperial Scholarship for foreign study by Tsar Alexander II. He first travelled to Munich before moving to Paris where he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme.
By the early 1860's, Chlebowski had become a successful artist, whose painting Joan of Arc in Amiens had been purchased by Napoleon III for the French State, a great honour for any artist of the time. His work came to the attention of the Sultan Abdul Aziz in 1864, who promptly appointed him Court Painter to the Ottoman Empire. Chlebowski held the position for twelve years during which time he had a study in the Dolma Bahçe Imperial Palace on the Bosphorus. There was a strong bond between Poland and Turkey after the failed Polish rising against the Russians in 1831 led to Constantinople becoming a centre for Polish exiles. Poland's national poet, Adam Mickiewicz, wrote: 'We Poles cherish the Turks for not having yielded in front of our enemy'. Chlebowski flourished during the period of this renewed Ottoman-Polish friendship and his pictures, such as The Entry of Faith into Constantinople and his frescos of the Sultan's battleships, still decorate the palaces today.
The present work was painted a year after Chlebowski returned to Poland. It depicts an Arnaut smoking a hookah, a subject also favoured by Gérôme. The word 'Arnaut' was the name given to an Albanian soldier in the Ottoman army. The Sultan's guards, 'Janissaries', were predominantly recruited from the Albanians and entered into the official records as Arnauts as a mark of their origin. This ancient and prestigious position is perhaps best described by Lady Mary Montagu. 'They are natives of Arnaoutlich, the ancient Macedonia, and still retain something of the courage and hardiness, though they have lost the name, of Macedonians, being the best militia in the Turkish empire...They are all clothed and armed at their own expense, generally lusty young fellows, dressed in clean white coarse cloth, carrying guns of prestigous length, which they run with on their shoulders as if they do not feel the length of them' (quoted in: E. Rhys, Letters from the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1709-1762, London, 1925, p.109).
The extraordinary headgear composed of a three-layered turban enclosing a fez and the rest of the guard's weaponry is that affected by the Janissaries of Constantinople. Despite being off-duty the sentinel maintains his noble pose while indulging in the highly revered Turkish water pipe.
By the early 1860's, Chlebowski had become a successful artist, whose painting Joan of Arc in Amiens had been purchased by Napoleon III for the French State, a great honour for any artist of the time. His work came to the attention of the Sultan Abdul Aziz in 1864, who promptly appointed him Court Painter to the Ottoman Empire. Chlebowski held the position for twelve years during which time he had a study in the Dolma Bahçe Imperial Palace on the Bosphorus. There was a strong bond between Poland and Turkey after the failed Polish rising against the Russians in 1831 led to Constantinople becoming a centre for Polish exiles. Poland's national poet, Adam Mickiewicz, wrote: 'We Poles cherish the Turks for not having yielded in front of our enemy'. Chlebowski flourished during the period of this renewed Ottoman-Polish friendship and his pictures, such as The Entry of Faith into Constantinople and his frescos of the Sultan's battleships, still decorate the palaces today.
The present work was painted a year after Chlebowski returned to Poland. It depicts an Arnaut smoking a hookah, a subject also favoured by Gérôme. The word 'Arnaut' was the name given to an Albanian soldier in the Ottoman army. The Sultan's guards, 'Janissaries', were predominantly recruited from the Albanians and entered into the official records as Arnauts as a mark of their origin. This ancient and prestigious position is perhaps best described by Lady Mary Montagu. 'They are natives of Arnaoutlich, the ancient Macedonia, and still retain something of the courage and hardiness, though they have lost the name, of Macedonians, being the best militia in the Turkish empire...They are all clothed and armed at their own expense, generally lusty young fellows, dressed in clean white coarse cloth, carrying guns of prestigous length, which they run with on their shoulders as if they do not feel the length of them' (quoted in: E. Rhys, Letters from the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1709-1762, London, 1925, p.109).
The extraordinary headgear composed of a three-layered turban enclosing a fez and the rest of the guard's weaponry is that affected by the Janissaries of Constantinople. Despite being off-duty the sentinel maintains his noble pose while indulging in the highly revered Turkish water pipe.