Constantinople

New English Paperback. Pbo. 4to. (29 x 21 cm). In English and Turkish. 208 p., color ills. "An Orientalist painter who lived almost half a century in Istanbul up to his death, Leonardo de Mango is described by the art commentator Thalasso as, a painter through whom the East spoke. De Mango was born on 19 February 1843, the eldest child of a large family in the town of Bisceglie near Bari in Italy, where he honed his native talent for drawing up to the age of nineteen. In 1862, under the patronage of an aristocratic family of Bari, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples and studied there for eight years under Filippo Palizzi and of Domenico Morelli. Morelli was also a painter who treated exotic orientalist themes. During this period de Mango also worked with Saverio Altamura, Bernardo Celentano, Raffaele d'Auria, Federico Maldarelli, Raffaele Postiglione and Giuseppe Mancinelli. In 1883 De Mango settled in Istanbul during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, where he is known to have set up, and taught for some time at, the oil painting department of the School of Fine Arts. Forced to leave Istanbul briefly in 1911 during the Tripolitanian War, the artist returned to the city following the Treaty of Ouchy on 15 October 1912. De Mango was among the artists who, at the initiative of Alexander Vallaury, a teacher in the architecture department of the School of Fine Arts, and Regis Delbeuf, manager of the Istanbul daily Le Stamboul, organized the first painting and sculpture exhibition at Beyoglu in 1901, dubbed the 'Pera Exhibitions in the Passage Oriental', an arcade owned by the French merchant Bourdon. With 27 works, De Mango was the most well represented artist in the exhibition, as he was again in the 1920 exhibition when he was one of 36 artists, participating with 33 of his own paintings. De Mango also had 16 paintings in the last of the Pera exhibitions, which was held in 1903. He painted in the open air and in his workshop at Beyoglu, reflecting the daily life of the different districts of Istanbul until his death in 1930.". Contents: Erol Makzume "The 75th anniversary of the death of an orientalist painter from Pera, Leonardo de Mango"; Roberta Ferrazza "Leonardo de Mango and the Italian community in Istanbul"; Bianca Consiglio "Portrait Painter Leonardo de Mango"; Piero Consiglio - Giacinto La Notte "Leonardo de Mango stages in a life divided between East and West"; Catalogue.