Abdülaziz

1 portrait matching these criteria:

- subject matching 'Around the world'

© National Portrait Gallery, London

 Like voting
is closed

Thanks for Liking

Please Like other favourites!
If they inspire you please support our work.

Buy a print Buy a greetings card Make a donation Close

Abdülaziz

by James Jacques Joseph Tissot
watercolour, published in Vanity Fair 30 October 1869
11 3/4 in. x 7 1/8 in. (298 mm x 181 mm)
Purchased, 1934
Primary Collection
NPG 4707(1)

Sitterback to top

  • Abdülaziz (1830-1876), Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Sitter associated with 7 portraits.

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

At the time of this caricature, Abdul Aziz was under pressure from European powers seeking to establish an influence in his domains. The Sultan is shown holding personifications of Greece and Egypt, as a European figure prepares to seize him. A political cartoon as much as a caricature, the magazine did not repeat this approach. The accompanying text ended with a prescient warning: 'it will be well, not only for Turkey, but for Europe, if …the Sultan becomes master of his own house'.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Rogers, Malcolm, Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery, 1993 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 5 August to 23 October 1994), p. 127
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 2

Placesback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1869back to top

Current affairs

Gladstone introduces the Irish Church Disestablishment Act, which disestablishes the Church of Ireland, disassociating it from the state and repealing the paying of tithes to the Anglican Church of Ireland.
Girton College is founded in Cambridge by Barbara Bodichon and Emily Davies, the first residential college for women in England; women were granted full membership to the University in 1948.

Art and science

Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev invents the periodic table of elements, which arranges elements within a group in order of their atomic mass.
The British scientist Mary Somerville publishes her last book On Molecular and Microscopic Science.
Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir paint together in the open air at La Grenouillère, developing the Impressionist style.

International

The Suez canal opens, linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean Sea, and transforming trade routes between Europe and Asia as merchants no longer had to circumvent Africa. The canal was largely in British and French control until Egyptian nationalisation in 1956, which sparked off the international Suez crisis.
Serialisation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel of Russian society during the Napoleonic wars, War and Peace finishes.

Comments back to top

We are currently unable to accept new comments, but any past comments are available to read below.

If you need information from us, please use our Archive enquiry service . Please note that we cannot provide valuations. You can buy a print or greeting card of most illustrated portraits. Select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Buy a Print button. Prices start at around £6 for unframed prints, £16 for framed prints. If you wish to license an image, select the portrait of interest to you, then look out for a Use this image button, or contact our Rights and Images service. We digitise over 8,000 portraits a year and we cannot guarantee being able to digitise images that are not already scheduled.