Old Istanbul portrait sold for a record price

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Aivazovsky’s ‘View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus’ was sold for $5,215,556.

An auction record for the artist was broken at Sotheby’s in London yesterday, when Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky’s famous “View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus” sold to an anonymous buyer on the telephone for $5,215,556.

The painting was the top lot in yesterday’s Orientalist Sale, an auction comprising 33 lots showcasing paintings, drawings and sculpture depicting Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. It was sold following a spirited contest between at least five bidders in the saleroom and on the telephones.

Estimated at £1.2 – 1.8 million, the Russian masterpiece is one of the artist’s most spectacular paintings and a tour de force in its evocation of light and atmosphere. Aivazovsky first visited Constantinople in 1845 as part of his duties as official painter to the Russian Admiralty. Completed in 1856, View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus celebrates the beauty.