Turkish artist recreates Istanbul panorama

NEW YORK

Melikşah Soytürk has restored the work using scientific methods.

Turkish painter Melikşah Soytürk has completed a two-year project to recreate and restore a 16th-century panorama of Istanbul, originally drawn by Dutch artist Melchior Lorich, unveiling the work for the first time at the Chicago Turkish Festival.

Living in the United States since 2012, the Kastamonu-born artist said the project was inspired by his desire to introduce Turkish history and culture to American audiences. Using fine-pen ink techniques, he enlarged the original 11.4-meter panorama to nearly 19 meters while reconstructing sections that had been severely damaged over the centuries.

“The original work had suffered extensive damage,” Soytürk said. “Using scientific methods, we restored it to our history and, in a sense, nationalized it.”

The original panorama, created between 1555 and 1559 during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, is preserved at Leiden University Library in the Netherlands. It is considered the earliest panoramic depiction of Istanbul by a Western artist.

Soytürk said his version consists of 22 sections and has been enlarged by more than one-and-a-half times to make its intricate details more visible.

“We are now looking at the world’s largest panoramic study of Istanbul,” he said.

The artist used an ink technique he learned from late Turkish State Artist Cemal Akyıldız, naming the method “Cemali” in tribute to his mentor.

Soytürk plans to complete the final section depicting the Eyüp district before presenting the finished work to Turkish authorities. He also hopes to exhibit it in New York and eventually in a permanent venue in Istanbul.

He said the restored panorama preserves the city’s 16th-century skyline, including landmarks such as the Süleymaniye Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Maiden’s Tower and the restored Byzantine walls, while reconstructing deteriorated portions of the original artwork.

The artist also noted that his enlarged version reveals details of Ottoman-era urban life and diplomacy, including boats belonging to German and Persian delegations in the Golden Horn and what may be a depiction of renowned Ottoman polymath Matrakçı Nasuh alongside Lorich.

Soytürk called on public institutions and cultural organizations to support international exhibitions of the work, saying displaying the panorama in major art centers and venues such as the United Nations headquarters would require significant financial backing.