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Lot Essay
Smyrna, now Izmir in Turkey, was a highly important town and trading centre in the Ottoman Empire where, by the end of the 17th century, all the major European powers maintained consuls. In 1677 the French traveller Tavernier wrote that to Smyrna 'all the Western Fleets are most regularly bound, that came formerly no farther than Lighorn'; he went on to describe the town vivdly as 'a great city built like an Amphitheater, upon the descent of a Hill... neither so great nor so beautiful as it formerly was, as may be easily conjectured by the Ruines of certain Edifices that remain upon that Hill... where the antient City stood.' (The Six Voyages of Johan Baptista Tavernier, London, 1677, p. 32). These qualities of Smyrna, well-known to many merchants, are precisely those detailed so carefully by Storck in the present picture. Indeed it is likely that the present picture was commissioned in Amsterdam by a merchant with specific trading interests in the Levant.
We are grateful to Dr. Pieter Roelofs for confirming the attribution to Abraham Storck (private correspondence, 30 May 2005). He will include this picture in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné. Roelofs points out that the picture belongs to a series of exotic harbour scenes painted by Storck in the early years of his career, noting that Storck never visited the Mediterranean, but instead drew his inspiration from the prints and drawings of other artists; a point reinforced by Marijke de Kinkelder of the RKD, to whom we are also grateful. It has not, however, proved possible to find a print of Smyrna that Storck might have used, although Dr. Roelofs has pointed out that a drawing of Smyrna can be found in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4589). This scarcity highlights how rare a painted view of Smyrna from this date truly is despite a keen contemporary interest in the Near East evinced by the publication of lavishly illustrated works such as those by Grelot and Chardin.
We are grateful to Dr. Pieter Roelofs for confirming the attribution to Abraham Storck (private correspondence, 30 May 2005). He will include this picture in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné. Roelofs points out that the picture belongs to a series of exotic harbour scenes painted by Storck in the early years of his career, noting that Storck never visited the Mediterranean, but instead drew his inspiration from the prints and drawings of other artists; a point reinforced by Marijke de Kinkelder of the RKD, to whom we are also grateful. It has not, however, proved possible to find a print of Smyrna that Storck might have used, although Dr. Roelofs has pointed out that a drawing of Smyrna can be found in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4589). This scarcity highlights how rare a painted view of Smyrna from this date truly is despite a keen contemporary interest in the Near East evinced by the publication of lavishly illustrated works such as those by Grelot and Chardin.