Jacob Jacobs (Belgian, 1812–1879)
General View of Constantinople (Vue Générale de Constantinople), 1842
Oil on canvas, 19 x 27 1/4 in.
Signed and dated lower right: J. Jacobs / ..42.
2015.3

Best known for his Romantic European landscapes and seascapes—and as an influential instructor in landscape painting at the renowned Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts—Jacob Jacobs also painted Orientalist scenes inspired by his travels to Egypt and Turkey in the late 1830s. General View of Constantinople is one of several paintings by the artist offering a picturesque view of Istanbul’s Golden Horn, and some of the city’s famous sites, including Hagia Sophia and its newly added minarets, as well as the Galata Tower. A version of this painting was displayed at the 1842 Brussels Salon, where it won a gold medal, and was described as showing Sultan Mahmoud II disembarking in Tophane, a neighborhood in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul).