8 WATERCOLOUR DRAWINGS, some heightened with white or gold, captioned in German in a late sixteenth-century hand, on 8 leaves and a further 24 blank leaves [for watermark: cf. Briquet 917 (Nuremberg 1554 or Nuremberg 1565-82)], small 4to (210 x 160mm.), limp vellum, a little light dust-soiling, binding with minor wear, soiling and wormholes, without ties

Ferdinand Sigismund Kress von Kressenstein of Nuremberg (1641-1704) [his father signed the Peace of Westphalia treaty], armorial bookplate;
Franz Josef II, Prince of Liechtenstein (1906-1989), armorial bookplate;
Henry Myron Blackmer II (1923-1988), booklabel, his sale in these rooms, 11-13 October 1989, lot 80, purchased by Herry W. Schaeffer (1934-2016)

Blackmer 1887 See also: Haydn Williams, 'Additional printed sources for Ligozzi's series of figures of the Ottoman Empire' (Master Drawings, volume 51, number 2, Summer 2013, pp. 195-220); See also: Metin And, Istanbul in the 16th century: the city, the palace, daily life (Istanbul, 1994).

FROM THE BLACKMER COLLECTION. FINE OTTOMAN COSTUME WATERCOLOURS, WITH A DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE. These splendid costume paintings, by an unidentified talented artist, who may have been a member of the entourage of a German ambassador to the Porte. Great attention to both accuracy and details is shown, and, according to the Blackmer Catalogue, these may be related to another suite of similar drawings in the Gennadius Library (A896 B), dated to about 1573. There is also some resemblance in style and presentation to certain of the costume illustrations in Nicolas de Nicolay's Navigations (1568, and later editions). Although Nicolay travelled in the Levant in the 1550s and is thought to have drawn his costume subjects from life, some doubt has been cast on this view, and it is now generally thought that he drew his subjects from the work of other artists and illustrators.

The subjects in this collection are captioned: Der Griechen Patriarch (the Greek Patriarch); Der Türckisch Keiyser (the Turkish Sultan); Der Türckisch Babst (the Sheik el-Islam); Türckisch weiber wie sie pflegen auf der gassen zu gehen (Turkish woman as they dress in the street); Also sezen die Türckischen weiber (seated Turkish woman); Ein Epirotische frau wie sie in Iren Heusern zu Galata pflegen zu gehen (a woman of Epirus in street dress going to her house in Galata); Ein Griegische frau (a Greek woman); and Ein Armenerinn (an Armenian woman).