Lot 3: Carlo Pellegrini 'Ape' (Italian, 1839-1889)

His Excellency Musurus Bey
The Turkish Ambassador
signed 'Ape' (lower left)
pencil and watercolour heightened with white
11 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (29.2 x 16.5 cm.)

Hendon, Church Farm House Museum, Vanity Fair 1869-1914, 10 September - 18 December, 1983.

Thomas Gibson Bowles.
Original Drawings for Vanity Fair; Christie's, London, 5 - 8 March 1912, lot 551 (2 gns. to Larkin).
Stanley Jackson.

A M B A S S A D O R S

His Excellency Constantine Musurus Pasha (b.1807), Turkish Ambassador, came to London, in 1851, as Envoy Extraordinary of the Porte during a year 'of great political difficulty, caused by the encroaching ambition of Russia, and the uncertainty which followed the Coup d'état of December 2nd'. Later in his career, and after his services in the Crimean War (1854-56), he won the distinction of the Order of the Medjidie, a Turkish honorary order established in 1851 by Abdul-Mejid. Later in his life, and at the time this article was published in Vanity Fair, Musurus Pasha was occupied with talks to unify the area of the Black Sea after the collapse of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

The diary of Sir Moses Montefiore, 21 November, 1859, recorded that Musurus Bey had 'expressed hmself as being anxious to see a colony of Jews in Palestine.'

'Like a good watch-dog, he must sleep with one eye open now, for there are burglars abroad.... At the present moment, if the difficulties of his position and the importance of the crisis be fairly considered, he is the most interesting of all the diplomatic corps in London.'

Vanity Fair, 'Men of the Day', No. 73, 1871.

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