Her younger sister Enise Hanım was mother to the painter Hale Asaf, another distinguished female artist of the late Ottoman society.

Her first private lessons in painting were provided by an Italian Orientalist artist, Fausto Zonaro, in his studio in the Istanbul quarter of Beşiktaş-Akaretler.

She fell in love with the Italian director of an acrobat company visiting Istanbul, and subsequently departed for Rome, and then Paris, evidently wishing to be involved in art circles.

[4] Mihri was introduced to Cavid Bey, Ottoman Minister of Finance, in Paris to arrange an agreement with the French government following the Balkan Wars.

Cenap Şahabettin, a member of Servet-i Fünun, notes one of its principle conceptions, a special relation with nature: "a place where emotions and dreams roam," it was also taken to act as the mirror of the artist's souls.

[8] Mihri Hanım's visit to the journalist Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın and the convicted ex-minister of finance, Cavit Bey, gave rise to criticisms regarding her behaviour.

Her close relations with the İttihat ve Terraki Cemiyeti (Committee of Union and Progress; CUP) eventually caused Mihri Hanım to leave Istanbul, occupied by Allied powers, for Italy in 1919.

[1] She had an affair with the Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio and through him found an opportunity to paint a portrait of the pope as well as to work at the restoration of the frescoes in a chapel.

[10] Mihri Hanım subsequently traveled to Rome, to Paris and then to the United States (New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., and Chicago).

[11] In September 2019, she was featured in the New York Times Overlooked series obituaries on remarkable people whose deaths initially went unreported in newspaper.