A watercolour showing the Grand Vizier (probably Köse Bahir Mustafa Pasa) giving an audience to the English Ambassador (likely to be Henry Grenville) in Topkapi Palace, Constantinople; many others in attendance.

Topkapi Palace was the official residence of the Ottoman Sultan. The English Ambassador is depicted wearing formal English court dress typical of the 1760s (a white silk suit with gold braid), along with a tri-corn hat and English bag-wig, during this audience. In the foreground, however, are the Turkish robes which he and his suite are about to be given before he is granted an audience with the Sultan himself (as shown in RCIN 917143).

This watercolour and its pair, 917143, were made as a result of the English artist Francis Smith accompanying Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore (1732–71) on his tour of the east in 1763–4, which included Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire. The watercolours made by Smith were used as the basis for engravings which illustrated Lord Baltimore’s account of his travels entitled 'Tour to the East in the Years 1763 and 1764', first published in 1767.

Text partly adapted from Style and Society: Dressing the Georgians, 2023.