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A rare 19th-century photo album showing Istanbul about 160 years ago has gone on display at the Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center, bringing together early images linked to the famed Ottoman photography studio Abdullah Freres.
Organized in cooperation with the National Archives of Hungary, the Gul Baba Tomb Heritage Protection Foundation and the Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center, the exhibition titled “The Istanbul Album of the Festetics Family” centers on an album named “Constantinople” from the archive of the Festetics family, one of Hungary’s prominent noble families.
The album is thought to have entered the family archive through Mary Hamilton, who married Taslizo Festetics II after divorcing the crown prince of Monaco.
Although the album, now owned by the National Archives of Hungary, does not include the photographer’s name or date of creation, it has been identified as the work of Abdullah Freres, the celebrated Ottoman photography studio also known as Abdullah Biraderler.
The album is considered one of the studio’s earliest works and takes visitors through the Istanbul of the 19th century, with city views and panoramas captured between 1860 and 1870.
Speaking at the opening, Aron Sipos, director of the Hungarian Cultural Center, said Türkiye drew strong interest among Hungarians in the 19th century, adding that researchers, explorers and travelers came to the country with new technologies, including cameras, and left behind a visual record.
Balazs Czetz, deputy director general of the National Archives of Hungary, said the photographs were taken during a period when broad reforms in the Ottoman Empire, known as the Tanzimat, had started to transform society and public life.
Czetz said the album includes landmark buildings, streets and views from districts such as Pera, Fatih and Beykoz.
He noted that the images carry particular historical value because they show places and architectural features that no longer exist. Among them are the decorated wooden houses once associated with Ottoman urban architecture, many of which disappeared in the 20th century because of fire risks.
A book titled “The Istanbul Album of the Festetics Family” by J. Csaba Horvath, Gergo Mate Kovacs and Aniko Schmidt has also been published in Turkish, Hungarian and English.
Photography historian Engin Ozendes, who wrote the introduction of the book, said elegant and costly albums of this kind attracted strong interest from Western visitors and were also presented as prestigious gifts among statesmen.
Ozendes also said additional photographs were included in the exhibition, including three original images printed with autochrome, an early practical color photography technique used in the late 19th century.
First shown in Hungary on March 31, 2023, the expanded version of the exhibition will remain open at the Hungarian Cultural Center until August 31.
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