Hasan Rıza

While there, he was chosen to decorate the cabins and salons of the Sultaniye, a ship belonging to Sultan Abdul Hamid II, that had seen service during the war and was undergoing repairs.

Upon returning, he received an offer to be reinstated in his former rank, but he refused, choosing instead to open his own workshop in Edirne.

[1] There, he created portraits and historical scenes, mostly from major wars fought by the early Ottoman Empire.

The artists, Sami Yetik and Mehmet Ali Laga [tr], who were serving at the front, made a last attempt to save his paintings before being taken captive.

During the 1900s, Sultan Abdul Hamid had commissioned the Italian artist, Fausto Zonaro, to create a series of works depicting the life of Mehmed the Conqueror.

A memoir by the artist, Hüsnü Tengüz (1874–1950), first published in 2011, led to the discovery that Zonaro had copied the basic design for some of those paintings from works by Rıza.