Pascal Sébah

Pascal Sébah (* 1823 in Istanbul, † June 15, 1886 in Istanbul ) was a leading photographer in the Ottoman Empire. He worked in the then capital of Constantinople Opel, now Istanbul.

Life

The Sébah family came from the Levant and was Arab - Christian origin, probably they came from what is now Lebanon.

Sébah, born in 1823 in Istanbul the son of a Syrian father and an Armenian mother in 1857 opened his studio at the Rue de Pera 439 - ' next to the Russian Embassy ", as he noted on the back of his portrait photographs. From 1860, he worked with a French technician, A. Laroche, together. This was henceforth responsible for the excellent printing quality of the photographs. 'On the Esbekieh next to the French Embassy ' - - 1873 a branch was opened in Cairo. Pascal suffered a stroke in 1883 Sébah why his brother Cosmi stepped in, until his son Jean ( Pascal ) Sébah (1872 - 1947) was old enough to manage the company. To 1884/1885 the Frenchman Poli Carpe Joaillier became a partner. From 1890 the company was therefore ' Sébah & Joaillier '. You got the right to call themselves ' photographers of the Sultan '. In 1900 returned Poli Carpe Joaillier back to France. From 1910 to collaborated Jean Sébah with Hagop Iskender and, until 1914, with Leo Perpignani. 1917-1918 were ' Sébah & Joaillier ' partner in the first systematic project of collecting and cataloging of monuments of all periods in Istanbul under the auspices of a German journalist and art historian Friedrich Schrader. Sébah and Iskender retired in 1934 from the business. This has been continued under the name 'Image Sabah ' until 1952. The branch in Cairo had already been closed in 1898.

Pascal Sébah was next to the Armenian Abdullah Frères ( Brothers Abdullah ) probably the most important professional photographer of his time in the Ottoman Empire. Another successful photographer this time in Constantinople Opel was the Greek Ottoman Vasilaki Kargopoulo. The great interest in Europe at the exotic Orient created ideal conditions to sell to travelers photographs of sights, folk scenes, oriental costumes and the like. Through this activity Sébah Pascal became the documentary of that time. His photographs have been used, among others, to illustrate scientific works about the Orient. He won medals at various World's Fairs, a silver medal at the Paris World Exposition in 1878 for his recordings of Egypt and the Nubian desert tribes. Even earlier he had for the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 a 370 -page work created over Turkish costumes, 'Les costumes populaires de la Turquie ' ( the folk costumes of Turkey), for which he is one of the organizers in Vienna, the gold medal and the then Sultan Abdulaziz had received another medal. The contract for this work was to him by the head of department of the Ottoman World's Fair, the painter Osman Hamdi Bey - was granted (1842, 1910 ). For this he photographed repeatedly models with elaborate costumes, then used Hamdi Bey for its famous oriental oil paintings.

In addition to the awards especially his ten -part and about 2.5 meters long panorama of Constantinople Opel, which was taken from the Galata Tower, and his five-piece panorama of Cairo contributed to Zebah celebrity. His work is characterized by excellent compositions, good lighting and great attention to detail and in his choice of objects. If in the overview work ' New History of Photography ' by Michel Frizot is: " [ ... ] the other hand was most prolific Pascal Sebah, who was resident in Constantinople Opel since the 1870s, as the quality of professional photography decreased towards the end of the century", then this remark refers rather to Pascal Zebah son and the company ' Sébah & Joaillier '.

In 1877, the Ottoman government Zebah responsible for the preparation of a series of photographs on which the so-called Russian atrocities on the Turkish population in the province of Eski Zagra in Eastern Rumelia, Bulgaria today, should be represented photographically recorded and processed for Western eyes. The German government provided 31 photographs are preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office and have included the subject of a meeting of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in Berlin in December 2010.

Works

Further Reading

• Agfa Photo Historama in the Wallraf -Richartz Museum, Museum Ludwig, Cologne. At the sweet shores of Asia: Egypt, Palestine, Ottoman Empire. Destinations of the 19th century in early photographs, 1988.
• Engin Çizgen: Photography in the Ottoman Empire: 1839 - 1919 Istanbul 1995 ISBN 975-470-451-1. ..
• Roswitha Buchner: The image of Istanbul in the 19th century. Pera leaves No. 13, Oriental Institute of the DMG, Department of Istanbul in 1997.
• Engin Özendes: From Sebah & Joaillier to photo Sabah: Orientalism in Photography. Istanbul 1999 ISBN. 975-080057-5.
• Friedrich Schrader: The historical monuments of Constantinople: The New Orient, 1919, Volume 5, pp. 302-304 and 352-354.