bosphorus

Hi, this photo is being discussed in one of the projects in the Flickr Commons group, and we'd love to have this added to the group pool!

Such a suprise to me. There had been so many ships and boats. Haliç was barely seen. Interesting!

On the left there is a capital hand writing: STAMBOUL, then commonly used for İstanbul. On the bottom left is a writing, first what seems to be initials H.H.(?) and 'Vue panoramique Constantinople (?)' Can anyone make out the last word?

I can't quite make out the middle part of white on white. But I think it definitely ends in "de Galata." This might refer to the View of Constantinople taken from the Galata Tower or a View of Constantinople including the lower parts of Galata in the foreground. I'm not sure. Although, if it's from Galata Tower, we should be able to see the Ottoman Bank (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3g10000/3g11000/3g11600/3g11646v.jpg). You can see a better panorama on the LOC Web site: http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/pan.6a35826/

The neighborhood is so delightfully cluttered that it's hard to pick out any individual buildings. Try to pick out the bank building in this photo for example: www.flickr.com/photos/zoutedrop/2886498879/in/photostream/ I'm pretty sure this was taken from Galata Tower. The mosque on the skyline at left is almost certainly the Hagia Sophia and the one to its right is probably the Blue Mosque, as it's in the right place and has the right number of minarets.

Caption on picture, at bottom, says, "Vue Panoramique de Top-Hané et du Bosphore." Tophane got me to the buildings, seen from above at maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ist... Zoom out to see the Bosphorus.

Probably taken from the top of Galata Tower. I can't find a modern photo, most people prefer to shoot the other way, across the Golden Horn. This one comes close: www.flickr.com/photos/halilgokdal/2860803757/

The stamp at top right seems to have a date of 11/7/13. There would have been several reasons for Turkey and the Bosphorus to be in the news at that time: a new U.S. Ambassador, Morgenthau [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau,_Sr. ], had just been appointed; there was a threat of war between Greece and Turkey followed by the November 1913 Treaty of Athens (there seems to be disagreement about the exact date); and general unrest in the Balkans.

Have to take lower angle of an image, or try to crop off a bit of a sky.

Tophane Istanbul lat=41.027225, lon=28.9816622155 .

This is Dolmabahçe Palace, "located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coastline of the Bosphorus strait, [which] served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1922, apart from a 22-year interval (1887–1909) in which Yıldız Palace was used. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmabah%C3%A7e_Palace To the left of the palace is Dolmabahçe Mosque. mosques.inistanbul.com/nm-Dolmabahce_Mosque-cp-117 A tinted version of this postcard, from the Harvard Fine Arts Library is at: archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=9467... It is credited to Éditeurs MJC (Moïse Jsraelowitz, Constantinople)

artolog, thanks for giving us the name of the palace and the mosque. We'll update our records.