The English Fleet Anchored at the Town of Beykoz, North of Istanbul

Anton Melbye

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Originally hoping to become a sailor, Melbye instead specialized in marine painting under the guidance of Eckersberg. Unlike his teacher, he sought most of his subjects abroad, where he spent a large part of his life. This striking drawing shows an English fleet anchored off Beykoz, a northern district of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) on the Anatolian side of the Bosporus Strait. Beykoz played an important role in the Crimean War (1853–56) because of its strategic position at the entrance to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. Melbye captured a quiet moment at the very beginning of the conflict, before the Ottoman Empire and its allies, France and the United Kingdom, defeated Russia.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art