Istanbul Gallery

Defeat of the Saracenic Fleet Before Constantinople, (717-718), 1890. Creator: Unknown

Defeat of the Saracenic Fleet Before Constantinople, (717-718), 1890. The Siege of Constantinople (717-718) a combined land and sea offensive by Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate against Constantinople and the Byzantine empire.The Arab fleet was almost completely destroyed by natural disasters and Byzantine attacks. From "Cassell's Illustrated Universal History, Vol. III - The Middle Ages", by Edmund Ollier. [Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris and Melbourne, 1890. ]

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Interior of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, 19th century. Creator: Unknown

Interior of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, 19th century. View of carved wooden minbar and Islamic texts inside the building while it was a mosque. Built in the 6th century by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, the Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofya) was intended to be the greatest church in Christendom. It remained the centre of the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church until 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. It was then converted into a mosque, which it remained until secularised and turned into a museum by order of Kemal Ataturk in 1934

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cup of Coffee: Two women taking coffee and smoking hubble-bubble, pub. 1865. Creator

The Cup of Coffee: Two women taking coffee and smoking hubble-bubble, with a black African woman slave, from Stamboul, Souvenir de l'Orient, published 1865 (colour litho). Count Amadeo Preziosi (1816-1882) was a Maltese painter known for his watercolours and prints of the Balkans, Ottoman Empire and Romania; Stamboul, Souvenir d'Orient was first published in Paris 1865

© Historica Graphica Collection / Heritage-Images