AMSTERDAM - The Ottoman Exhibition at the State Museum Dutch capital Amsterdam ended on Tuesday.
The exhibition was comprised of the paintings and souvenirs given by the Ottoman Palace to Cornelis Calkoen, who acted as Dutch Ambassador in Istanbul between 1727 and 1744.
Nearly 75 thousand people visited the exhibition entitled ''The Ambassador, The Sultan and The Artist, An audience in Istanbul'' which has been open since July.
During his tenure in Istanbul, Calkoen ordered French painter Jean-Baptiste Vanmour a series of paintings.
When Calkoen came to the Topkapi Palace to present his credentials to Sultan Ahmed III, he had this important event recorded by the painter Jean Baptiste Vanmour.
Together with the many depictions of court dignitaries and genre pieces by Vanmour, these paintings provide a remarkable picture of life at the Ottoman court in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Some of these paintings and several objects such as sword, dagger, caftan, walking stick and snuffbox were taken from Istanbul's Topkapi Palace on loan.
Preparatory works for the exhibition took two years and intense works of Istanbul's Topkapi Museum and Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum officials.
Most of the paintings were restored.
The exhibition will be opened at the Topkapi Palace in the coming days.
(UK-AÖ) 28.10.2003