Khalil Bey
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Khalil Bey (1831, Egypt - 1879) was an Ottoman diplomat and art collector, whose collection was known by Théophile Gautier as "the first ever to be formed by a child of Islam". He commissioned Les Dormeuses (The Sleepers) and L'Origine du monde from Gustave Courbet and also acquired Le Bain turc (The Turkish Bath) from Ingres.
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Life
Bey was born in Egypt after his father emigrated there to serve as a captain in the army of Mehmet Ali, making a huge fortune in the process. Bey was thus educated partly at an Egyptian school in Paris, before taking up his first official posting in 1855 as Commissioner to the International Exhibition in Paris that year. He entered the Ottoman diplomatic service in 1856, serving as one of the plenipotentiaries negotiating the end to the Crimean War then as ambassador to Athens and Saint Petersburg, on which posts he began collecting. He grew to dislike Saint Petersburg's cold and so retired in a private capacity to Paris in the mid 1860s, renting expensive rooms from the English collector Lord Hertford on Rue Taitbout and becoming a noted gambler, art collector and patron. He was introduced to Gustave Courbet by Sainte-Beuve, and commissioned Les Dormeuses (The Sleepers) and L'Origine du monde from him. He also acquired Le Bain turc (The Turkish Bath) from Ingres and other works by Eugene Delacroix, Troyon, Daubigney, Meissonier, Corot, Rousseau and Gerome. In January 1868 he sold off his collection just before leaving to become Ottoman ambassador to Vienna, thus getting out of Paris only 2 years before the Franco-Prussian War. After that posting he moved to Constantinople and married the daughter of one of the prominent reformers of the time. In 1877 he returned to Paris as Ottoman ambassador for a few months.
Collection
- L’Origine du monde de Courbet (1866), commande de Khalil-Bey à l’artiste, Paris, musée d’Orsay.
- Le Sommeil de Courbet (1866), commande de Khalil-Bey, Paris, musée du Petit Palais, .
- L’Assassinat de l’évêque de Liège de Delacroix (1830), Paris, musée du Louvre.
- Le Bain turc d’Ingres (1862), Paris, musée du Louvre.
- L’Allée des châtaigniers de Théodore Rousseau (vers 1837-1840), Paris, musée du Louvre.
Sources
- Francis Haskell, 'A Turk and His Pictures in Nineteenth-Century Paris', Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, Patronage (1982), pp. 40-47
See also
