Location: Storage rooms
Part of a series of views of port cities, this image portrays the port of Sinop, on the Black Sea in Turkey. Originally in the collections of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II, it travelled from Florence to Vienna and eventually to Trieste as part of Maximilian’s collection.
It was painted in 1786 by cartographer and vedutista Antonio Baseggio.
The port is depicted at dawn while a few boats manoeuvre on the water of the bay. On the left foreground, an Ottoman vessel is flanked by a smaller boat full of sailors wearing traditional turbans. On the right, a Russian ship can be seen advancing out of the inlet, with sailors on deck wearing bicorne hats. The clear morning light is reflected on the surface of the water, from which the port’s fortifications rise, giving the scene a peaceful, idyllic feel.
But in reality, from the 1500s to the early 1900s, this natural harbour was a strategic naval outpost for the Ottoman fleet during the Russo-Turkish wars. On 30 November 1853, the harbour was the site of the Battle of Sinop (the last major naval battle with sail-powered ships) in which two squadrons of Russian imperial warships defeated the Turkish fleet, thereby sparking the Crimean War (1854-1856).
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