Felix Ziem

FÉLIX ZIEM, (Beaune, February 26, 1821 - Paris, November 10, 1911).
"Fontaine de la sultane Mihri?ah, Eaux douces".
Oil on panel.
It presents cradled of the time.
Signed in the lower right corner.
With certificate of the Association Felix Ziem signed by Mathias Ary Jan and David Pluskwa.
Referenced in the catalog raisonné Felix Ziem, reference 332/0525.
Measurements: 68 x 108 cm, 98 x 140 cm (frame).

Felix Ziem was a traveler painter deeply influenced by his many travels through Europe and North Africa. His work is marked by a notable interest in Orientalism, a European artistic trend that idealized the Islamic and Oriental world through an exotic and romantic gaze. Ziem was a pioneer in capturing this aesthetic, and one of the places that most deeply impressed him was Constantinople (today Istanbul), a city he visited for the first time in 1856.

During his stays in Constantinople, Ziem was fascinated by the Ottoman architecture, the daily life on the Bosphorus and the unique light that bathed the city. One of the iconic buildings of that era is the Sultana Mihri?ah Fountain, an Ottoman Rococo masterpiece located near the Eyüp Palace. This fountain, built in the 18th century in honor of the mother of Sultan Selim III, represents a perfect example of the decorative splendor that so attracted European artists fascinated by the Ottoman world.

Here you can see Ziem's painting of this fountain directly, which accurately reflects this type of architecture: domes, minarets, ornamental fountains and harbor scenes. Ziem not only reproduced urban views, but transformed these images into poetic atmospheres, where architecture-like that of the Mihri?ah Fountain-served as a symbol of Eastern cultural splendor.

His painting of Constantinople, like his works on Venice, shows how Ziem captured the emotional geography of places, linking the visual with the spiritual and the historical. Thus, the Fountain of the Sultana Mihri?ah can be understood as part of the visual and symbolic universe that fueled Ziem's Orientalist work during his time in a city that embodied the encounter between two worlds: East and West.

Félix Ziem was a French painter noted for his orientalist landscapes and his mastery of watercolor. Initially trained in architecture in Dijon, he abandoned this career to devote himself to painting after a trip to Italy in 1841. His work ranged from scenes of Venice and Constantinople to landscapes of Provence and North Africa, reflecting his passion for light and color. He was recognized with the Legion of Honor in 1857 and became an official painter of the French Navy in 1901. He died in Paris in 1911 and is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

His legacy lives on in the Ziem Museum in Martigues, inaugurated in 1910, which houses an important collection of his works, including landscapes of Venice, Constantinople and the Provence region.