Fausto Zonaro (18 September 1854 – 19 July 1929) was an Italian painter, best known for his realist style paintings of life and history of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

Life

Young life and early art career

Fausto Zonaro was born in Masi, a municipality in the

Province of Padua The province of Padua () is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Padua. Geography It has an area of 2,142 km2, and a total population of 936,492 (2016) making it the most populated provi ...

, then part of the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

. He was the eldest child of the mason Maurizio and his wife Elisabetta Bertoncin. Maurizio intended that his son should also be a mason, yet at a young age, Fausto showed a great ability at

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

. With his parents’ consent, he enrolled first in the Technical Institute in Lendinara, then in the Cignaroli Academy in

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

under Napoleone Nani. Fausto opened a small art school and studio in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, but traveled often to

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

as well. He felt no clear direction in his life at that time. He actively displayed works in exhibition and gained respect of critics. He painted mainly

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

works in oil and watercolor. In 1883 at Milan, he exhibited: ''Le rivelatrici napoletane''; ''Da

Sant'Elmo Castel Sant'Elmo is a medieval fortress located on Vomero, Vomero Hill adjacent to the Certosa di San Martino, overlooking Naples, Italy. The name "Sant'Elmo" derives from a former 10th-century church dedicated to Sant'Erasmo, shortened to "Erm ...

'', and ''Al

Pincio The Pincian Hill ( ; ) is a hill in the northeast quadrant of the historical centre of Rome. The hill lies to the north of the Quirinal, overlooking the Campus Martius. It was outside the original boundaries of the ancient city of Rome, and wa ...

''; in Rome, the canvases ''Passa la vacca''; ''La sofferente''; ''Le cucitrici napoletane'', and ''Il saponaro''. In 1884, at Turin: ''Tempesta''; ''Primo nato''; ''Primo tuono'', and the '' Zoccolaro of Naples''; and in 1887 at Venice: ''In attesa''; ''Al Redentoretto'', and ''Lavoratrice di perle''. La casa Camerini of Padua once possessed a ''banditore''; and two canvases: ''I pigiatori'' and ''In medio stat virtus''. The turning point in Zonaro's career occurred however in 1891, when he fell in love with photographer Elisabetta Pante (1863-1946), a pupil of his in Venice, and together they traveled to Istanbul, capital of the

, inspired in part by Edmondo de Amicis’ orientalist travel book '' Constantinopoli''.

Constantinople

In 1892, Zonaro and Pante married, and lived in the Constantinople neighborhood of Pera. The couple had two children together, a son named Fausto Jr. and a daughter named Yolanda. Over time he gained patronage in Çonstantinople's aristocratic circles. While teaching painting to the wife of Munir Pasha, the Minister of Protocol, Zonaro and Pante got to know the important artistic figures of Istanbul of that time, including

Osman Hamdi Bey Osman Hamdi Bey (30 December 1842 – 24 February 1910) was an Ottoman Turkish administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was the Ottoman Empire's first modern archaeologist, and is regarded as the ...

. In 1896 he was nominated as the

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

(

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

: ''Ressam-ı Hazret-i Şehriyari'') to

Abdulhamid II Abdulhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (; ; 21 September 184210 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a Decline and modernizati ...

thanks to the intervention of the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

ambassador who had introduced the sultan to Zonaro's work, ''Il reggimento imperiale di Ertugrul sul ponte di Galata'' (in English: ''The Imperial Regiment of Ertugrul on the Galata Bridge''), which he then purchased. The Sultan later commissioned a series of paintings depicting events in the life of the 15th-century Ottoman sultan,

Mehmed II Mehmed II (; , ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror (; ), was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and then later from February 1451 to May 1481. In Mehmed II's first reign, ...

. As court painter, Zonaro viewed himself as the successor to the Venetian painter

Gentile Bellini Gentile Bellini (c. 1429 – 23 February 1507) was an Italian painter of the Venetian painting, school of Venice. He came from Venice's leading family of painters, and, at least in the early part of his career, was more highly regarded than his y ...

, who had been commissioned by Mehmed II to paint his portrait over 400 years earlier.

Return to Italy

Zonaro remained in Istanbul until 1909, then returned to Italy after the

Young Turk Revolution The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908; ) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the Internal Committee of Union and Progress, an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II ...

that overthrew his patron Abdulhamid II and made Ottoman Empire a constitutional monarchy. There would be no further Ottoman court painters after him. He settled in

Sanremo Sanremo, also spelled San Remo in English and formerly in Italian, is a (municipality) on the Mediterranean coast of Liguria, in northwestern Italy. Founded in Roman times, it has a population of 55,000, and is known as a tourist destination ...

where, until his death, he continued to produce small paintings of the

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and the nearby

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, as well as nostalgic scenes of the Bosphorus to assuage his yearning for Istanbul. In 1920 he separated from his wife and began living with his daughter Yolanda. Nine years later, he died. He is buried in the Foce Cemetery in Sanremo. On his gravestone, beneath an Ottoman ''

tughra A tughra (; ) is a calligraphy, calligraphic monogram, Seal (emblem), seal or signature of a sultan that was affixed to all official documents and correspondence. Inspired by the Tamga, tamgha, it was also carved on his seal and stamped on the co ...

'', it states that Zonaro was the court painter of the Ottoman Empire.

Artistic work and reputation

A prolific artist who created hundreds of works, Zonaro painted

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and historical paintings, mostly of the Ottoman Empire. He is said to have been "one of those who made a major contribution to the development of western-style art in Turkey.” An exhibition of his work in Florence in 1977 "received wide acclaim in the art world". Today, most of Zonaro's works are displayed in Istanbul's leading museums, including in the

Topkapı Palace The Topkapı Palace (; ), or the Seraglio, is a large museum and library in the east of the Fatih List of districts of Istanbul, district of Istanbul in Turkey. From the 1460s to the completion of Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856, it served as the ad ...

, the Dolmabahçe Palace and the Istanbul Military Museum. Others of his works can be seen in the private

Sakıp Sabancı Museum The Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum () is a private fine arts museum in Istanbul, Turkey, dedicated to Islamic calligraphy, calligraphic art, religious and state documents, as well as paintings of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman era. The ...

and Pera Museum. A number of his paintings belong to private collectors in Turkey.

Gallery

Some of Zonaro's paintings are in the Pera Museum in Istanbul (''Daughter of the English Ambassador Riding in a Palanquin'') and the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. File:Fausto Zonaro (attr) Türkisches Mädchen.jpg, Türkisches Mädchen Image:10 Muharram.jpg, '' 10th of Muharram'' Image:Kusatma Zonaro.jpg, ''Mehmed II at the Siege of Constantinopole'' Image:Dömeke Harbi Zonaro.jpg, ''The Attack'' (1896) File:Fausto Zonaro - The Daughter of the English Ambassador Riding in a Palanquin - Google Art Project.jpg, The Daughter of the English Ambassador Riding in a Palanquin File:Fausto Zonaro - Woman Playing a String Instrument - Google Art Project.jpg, Woman Playing a String Instrument File:Fausto Zonaro - Fishermen Bringing in the Catch.jpg, ''Fishermen Bringing in the Catch'' (1891 - 1910) File:Fausto Zonaro (attr) Istanbul im Winter.jpg, Istanbul, Winter File:Zonaro GatesofConst.jpg,

Entering Constantinople

References

Sources

* Fausto Zonaro page :it:Fausto Zonaro on the

Italian Wikipedia The Italian Wikipedia () is the Italian language, Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on 10 May 2001, and first edited on 11 June 2001. As of , it has articles and more than registered accounts. It is the -largest W ...

* Fausto Zonaro page :tr:Fausto Zonaro on the Turkish Wikipedia (Vikipedi)
Studies site Osmanlı Araştırmaları

site dedicated to the artist (in Italian). * '' Constantinople City of the World’s Desire 1453-1924'' by Philip Mansel
''Un pittore Veneto Bizantino''
Cronache della civiltà elleno-Latina, Rivista Quindicinale, Volume 11, Fasc VII-VIII, (1903) author Angelo De Gubernatis, page 123–125.

External links

Site containing numerous paintings by the artist
accessed by clicking on the blue titles on the right
Three Zonara paintings
at Art Renewal Center.
Another painting
at Art Renewal Center. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zonaro, Fausto 1854 births 1929 deaths 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Orientalism Italian Orientalist painters Culture of the Ottoman Empire Painters at the court of the Ottoman Empire 19th-century painters of historical subjects