Organized in cooperation with Sanko Park Mall and Empathy Social Responsibility and Education Association, the ‘Ads Presenting Ottomans to Europe’ exhibition offered visitors the opportunity to view a distinct and beautiful exhibition.
The exhibition showcased the 160-piece chromolithography collection of Frederic Izydorczyk, consisting of Ottoman advertisements from the 19th and 20th centuries.
The chromos displayed in the exhibition are composed of pictures and text featuring the historical and political events of the period through pieces like adventure series for children or articles introducing rice, lace or Ottoman sultans for adults.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was depicted in French advertisements and on the colorful packages of a variety of food products such as milk powder, cocoa, chocolate and confectionery. These colored packages featuring life in the harem, the Ottoman sultans, the city of İstanbul and the Young Turks, were the most common visual materials that depict Turks in the period when the newspapers were in black and white.
Frederic Izydorczyk revealed that he was interested in the Ottoman chromos instead of the European ones when he found them all in a chest belonging to his great-grandmother and said, “The Ottoman Empire was very different from the others. All the others had familiar symbols like kings, queens or princesses. But in the Ottoman Empire, there were harems and sultans and the diversity of costumes intrigued me.”
