Mosque of St Sophia from the Hippodrome [Hagia Sophia]
Francis Bedford (1815-1894)
Mosque of St Sophia from the Hippodrome [Hagia Sophia]
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey, 22 May 1862 Albumen print, 230 x 290 mm
Given the density of the cityscape, Bedford was not able to take a clear shot of this celebrated mosque without including its rather ramshackle modern urban setting in the foreground. This intrusion of contemporary life creates a scene which is unusual for the series. However, the main focus of the photograph was the great mosque itself. Commissioned by Byzantine emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537 AD as a church, it was converted to a mosque in 1453. The prince, unsurprisingly, described it in his journal as the finest he had seen in ‘the East’.
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Below is a video provided by the Royal Collection Trust which explains the wet collodion photographic process used by Francis Bedford while touring with the prince. As a process it had only been invented in the 1850s, just over 10 years before it was used by Bedford during the Royal Tour with such skill
