An unnamed investor has spent £1,016,000 ($1.35mn) acquiring orientalist painter Osman Hamdi Bey’s 1881 work Kahve Hazirlamak (Preparing coffee) at a London Sotheby’s auction.

Osman Hamdi (1842-1910), an Ottoman administrator, intellectual and archaeologist, sold the painting to a Georgian prince around 1910 and, around 1930, it was sold on to an unnamed Viennese collector.

Sotheby’s released the results of the auction on April 29.

Lost piece

It was thought that the piece was lost until it recently re-emerged for sale at Sotheby’s in London. Until its rediscovery, the painting was known only from a photograph taken in 1881 by Sebah & Joaillier.

The glass negative of the photo is held by the Istanbul German Archaeological Institute Archive.

Imagined interiors

The painting depicts two young women preparing to serve coffee in what may be the imagined interior of the harem complex in Topkapi Palace, or Seraglio, in Istanbul’s Fatih district.

It is one of a series of Osman Hamdi paintings that date to a period of intense productivity of the painter between 1878 and 1881.

In common with Osman Hamdi’s other works, the composition is an artful creation or impression of elegance rather than a depiction of an actual place.

Studies in Paris

In the 1860s, Hamdi studied painting in the atelier of Gustave Boulanger in Paris and subsequently at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he attended classes of Jean-Leon Gerome, another major influence.

Osman Hamdi adopted the western style of painting to depict orientalist scenes. He followed the burgeoning vogue and market for orientalist art.

In 1882, he founded the academy of fine arts in Istanbul. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and an honorary member of the University of Pennsylvania. He received the Legion d’honneur and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

No tortoise trainers

The Tortoise Trainer is Osman Hamdi’s most famous work. It is an imaginary scene, apparently portraying Osman Hamdi trying to modernise Ottomans. The Ottomans had no tortoise trainers to speak of.