(Berlin 1847–1923)
A view of Constantinople, signed, indistinctly inscribed C. Saltzmann Neog..., on the reverse remains of an artist’s visiting card with the title “Konstantinopel”, oil on canvas, 126 x 250 cm, framed (Rei) 

Compare:
Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts, Hofheim am Taunus 1979, vol. II/2, pp. 518/519, nos 41, 47.

Provenance:
Private Collection, Germany.

Carl Saltzmann is one of the best-known German landscape painters of the Wilhelmine Period. He attracted the interest of the House of Hohenzollern even as a young artist, and accompanied Prince Heinrich (whose brother would go on to become Emperor Wilhelm II) on a two-year world voyage. He then taught drawing to Wilhelm and Heinrich, and regularly joined Wilhelm on his annual summer trip to Scandinavia for twenty years from 1888 onwards. 
By 1890 he had established himself as an artist and was appointed to Berlin’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1896.
His oeuvre primarily encompasses landscapes and seascapes. 

The present lot likely dates to the early 1890s, the period in which he achieved his breakthrough as an artist. It depicts the old town of Constantinople in the bright, clear light of dawn. The entrance to the Golden Horn can be seen to the right, with the Hagia Sophia rising up in the centre. Five of the famous six minarets of the Blue Mosque can be seen above the roofs in the old town, further to the left.