Antoine Ignace Melling Antoine Ignace Melling ( 1763 – 1831 ) was a painter , architect and voyager who is counted among the “ Levantine Artists ” . He is famous for his vedute of Constantinople , a town where he lived for 18 years . He was imperial architect to Sultan Selim III and Hatice Sultan and later landscape painter to the Empress Josephine of France . His most influential work is published as " Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore " . Melling ' s two given names are often written in hyphenated form as Antoine - Ignace . Biography . Antoine Ignace ( Anton Ignaz ) Melling was born in Karlsruhe in 1763 . After the death of his sculptor father , Antoine lived with his painter uncle in Strassbourg ( Alsace ) . As a young man he visited his older brother , and studied Architecture and Mathematics at Klagenfurt . At the age of 19 , he went to Italy , Egypt , and finally Constantinople as a member of the Russia n Ambassador ' s retinue and household with the aim of drawing pictures for various dignitaries . He was introduced to princess Hatice Sultan , sister and confidant of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III . At Hatice Sultan ' s suggestion , Melling was employed as Imperial Architect by Selim III . In 1795 the princess commissioned Melling to design a labyrinth for her palace at Ortaköy in the style of the Danish ambassador Baron Hübsch ' s garden . Delighted with the result , she asked Melling to redecorate the palace interior , and subsequently , a completely new neoclassical palace at Defterdarburnu . He also designed clothes and jewellery for her . Melling Pasha ' s eighteen years as Imperial Architect gave him a privileged opportunity to observe the Ottoman Court . He became more familiar with the Ottoman palace than any Western artist since Gentile Bellini . He made many detailed drawings of the Sultan ' s palaces , Ottoman society , and vedute of Constantinople and its environs . He was rightly known as " the unrivalled painter of the Bosphorus " . As stated in an anonymous travelogue written in about 1817 , " Sometimes these pictures contain an excessive amount of detail in an endeavour to reflect the reality but they depict the modern buildings and landscapes of this city , every view of which is attractive , in a manner more successful than that achieved in the most sensitive written descriptions . " He worked in a far more realistic manner than Matthäus Merian ( 1593 – 1650 ) . Merian ’ s panorama engraving of Constantinople , published in 1653 and extensively reprinted , whilst claiming to represent the view of the city from the heights of Galata and Beyoğlu , depicts Ottoman capital as a city consisting only of minarets . Paris . He returned to Paris in 1803 , and published a prospectus for the " Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphor " . With the help of Talleyrand Melling was appointed landscape painter to the Emperor Napoleon ' s wife , the Empress Josephine . By 1809 he had set up an engraving studio for the purpose of reproducing completed images of his drawings . A series of facsimile s were sent out to subscribers , between 1809 and 1819 . Examples of etchings with engraving by Schroeder , Duplessi - Bertaux , and Pigeot after Melling , with later professional hand - colouring , include : Travels . His 1812 journey to the Netherlands ( under French rule at the time ) is documented by Melling not only by a large number of surviving drawings but also by the letters sent to his family in Paris . The joys and inconveniences of that journey , which took him as far as the Hanseatic towns , are reported in a lively style , as are various aspects of Dutch life , the monuments and inhabitants of large cities , like Rotterdam and Amsterdam , and the " overwhelming appeal " of villages such as Broek in Waterland and the peaceful Sunday atmosphere of Zwolle . The illustrated and annotated letters , preceded by an introduction – like a travel diary intended for a " Voyage pittoresque " – were never published . In 1815 he traveled with his daughter , drawing the capitals of all the French " département s " , and visited Britain in 1817 . After 1821 , he was sent by the French Government to document the Pyrenees and demonstrate that their natural beauty rivalled that of the Alps . 72 fine aquatints , based on original sepia watercolours , were issued - together with text by Joseph Antoine Cervini - as : " Voyage Pittoresque dans les Pyrénées Françaises et les Départements Adjacents " , ( Picturesque Travels in the French Pyrenees and the Adjacent Areas ) , Treuttel and Wurtz , Paris : 1826 - 30 , ( Bibliographie nationale Française , BnF , The French national Bibliography ISBN 2 - 911715 - 12 - 8 ) . Examples of hand - coloured aquatints from this work include : Legacy . The Nobel Prize - winning Turkish novelist , Orhan Pamuk dedicates a whole chapter to Melling in his autobiographical memoir , " " . Pamuk claims that Melling " saw the city like an Istanbullu but painted it like a cleareyed Westerner . " On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the foundation of the Ottoman State , correspondence between Antoine Ignace Melling and Hatice Sultan , between 1763 – 1801 ; was reviewed in a paper by Fréderic Hitzel - at the 1999 International Congress on Learning and Education in the Ottoman World . The International Congress organised by IRCICA in cooperation with the Turkish Historical Society and the Turkish Society for History of Science , with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey . The congress took place under the patronage and in presence of the President of Turkey . 175 scholars and researchers from 28 countries participated in it . The papers presented - subsequently revised by their authors - are published in three separate volumes : Arabic , ( Vol . 1 ) , English , ( Vol . 2 ) , and Turkish , ( Vol . 3 ) , respectively . Melling is included in the Sabancı University Faculty of Arts & Social Science course : " Major Works of Ottoman Culture " , ( HUM 203 ) . This course , " focuses on a selected few masterpieces of Ottoman artistic and literary production , picked on the basis of not only their high aesthetic qualities , but also their representativeness across different genres and historical periods " . The Ertuğ & Kocabıyık facsimile edition of the complete " Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphor " was produced from the original " elephant folio " , an unfolded first edition in the collection of Ahmet Ertuğ . The technical aspects of the project were done under the supervision of Ertuğ in Switzerland by facsimile specialists . This facsimile edition was available in two different bindings . One is bound in Japanese cloth and the other is a very limited edition of only 50 copies bound in leather - intended for connoisseurs of fine books . The binding and decoration of all the leather - bound copies were done by hand . The book includes 48 views of Constantinople in the late 18th century and also three maps . The facsimile publishers also offered 25 copies of an edition of the unfolded image plates presented in a leather - bound case . The text for this edition is bound separately and presented in a pocket in the leather case . The descriptions of the views in the facsimile edition are in the original French , with an English translation .