Description

على شرف پاشاAli ŞEREF PAŞA (also Hafız Ali Eşref, Istanbul ? – 1907).

Paris: 1285 (Rumi Calendar) [1869].

A map from a rare atlas, which was the first atlas in Ottoman language printed in the technique of lithography. It was probably made in a limited amount, by Ali Şeref Paşa, at the end of the studies of cartography in Paris, where he was sent by the Ottoman government to learn the new western techniques of map-making and cartography.

The atlas includes 22 decoratively drafted elegant and balanced maps of the World, continents, European countries and the Ottoman Empire, all lithographed in vivid colours and ornated with oriental patterns in margins.

Ali Şeref Paşa – The Pioneer of the Modern Ottoman Cartography

Ali Şeref Paşa (also known as Hafız Ali Eşref) was a soldier and map-maker, who was sent by the Ottoman government around 1862 to Paris, with a goal to learn the skills of the modern cartography and the technique of modern lithography in colour.

In 1869, Ali, when still a student in Paris, published his first atlas. This work with 22 maps in folio format, lithographed in bright colours, with decorative Ottoman lettering, is the first modern Ottoman lithographed atlas and together with its printing technique a foundation for all the Ottoman atlases following.

Upon his return to Istanbul, Ali Şeref Paşa became a chief cartographer at the Matbaa-i Amire, a printing press in Beyazit, which was the successor of the Müteferrika press from 1727. Ali introduced lithograph as a printing technique for cartographic sources to Istanbul and in the following years commissioned a series of maps in folio format, which were issued in another large format atlas ىگى جغرافىا آطلسى (Yeñi coġrafya aṭlası / The New Geographic Atlas), making his Paris-based knowledge available in the Ottoman Empire.

Ali Şeref Paşa’s most famous late project was a 100 sheet map of Anatolia, which he based on the Heinrich Kiepert’s map of the same area. When Ali died in 1907, the project remained unfinished. Separate sheets of the wall map were sold and today scarcely appear on the market.