OTTOMAN TURKEY, PERIOD OF SULTAN 'ABDULHAMID II (R. 1876-1909)

A smaller panel made of cast gun-metal, measuring 20cm at its maximum diameter, was removed from a captured Ottoman field gun during Field Marshal Edmund Allenby’s advance in Palestine in September 1918, and is now in the Imperial War Museum, London (ORD 223). A later brass panel of the same size from a cannon cast for Mehmed V (r.1909-18) was sold at Chiswick London, 22 July 2020, lot 347. Each panel consists of an Ottoman armorial under a star and crescent containing the tughra of the reigning sultan, showing a remarkable consistency in design during the decades bookending the beginning of the 20th century. The large size and modest curvature of the present panel suggests it was once mounted on a truly magnificent cannon.