ISTANBUL, Dec 13 (AFP) - "The Turtle Trainer," an enigmatic 1906 painting by Ottoman artist Osman Hamdi Bey, fetched five trillion Turkish lira (3.5 million dollars, 2.64 million euros) at an auction here Sunday, a record for a painting by a Turkish artist, newspapers reported Monday.
The previous record, experts said, belonged to the same painting, which sold for 700,000 dollars when it was bought by its previous owner, art collector and businessman Erol Aksoy, at an auction in 1992.
It was sold Sunday, along with the rest of the Aksoy collection, by Turkey's banking watchdog TMSF, which seized the collection when it was forced to bail out Aksoy's bankrupt Iktisat Bank in March 2001.
The 223 by 117-centimeter (89.2 x 46.8-inch) oil on canvas, depicting a turbaned, bearded, red-robed man looking at five turtles gathered at his feet on a white-tiled floor, had always been in private collections.
Osman Hamdi, who died 1910 at the age 68, was credited with opening the first art museum of the Ottoman Empire, and his "Turtle Trainer" will appropriately be put on show at the Suna-Inan Kirac Foundation's new Pera Museum, scheduled to open in downtown Istanbul in June 2005.
Put on sale at 1.900 trillion TL (1.3 million dollars, 998,000 euros), it was finally landed after a heart-stopping auction by the Kirac Foundation, which outbid the Istanbul Modern Arts Museum.
"It went to the right place," commented Haldun Dostoglu, a prominent art expert and gallery owner, saying the painting "clicks with the Kirac collection," which he described as one of Turkey's best bodies of orientalist art.
The painting would have fitted in less well with the more modernist works on display the at the new Istanbul Modern Arts Museum, the first of its kind in Turkey, which opened its doors only last week, he said.
The total Aksoy collection -- 322 paintings and 22 pieces of rare Iznik china -- went for more than 10 trillion TL (seven million dollars, 5.3 million euros), breaking several other records on the way, including one trillion TL (700,000 dollars, 530,000 euros) paid for a work by early 20th century artist Nazmi Ziya.
Dostoglu said that in his opinion, "The Turtle Trainer" was not Osman Hamdi's best work, but had, over the years, gained cult status, "somewhat like the Mona Lisa."
The painting's mysterious message may have something to do with it: since turtles are by nature untrainable, the daily Milliyet wrote, experts have had a field day speculating over what it all really means.
Interpretations have ranged from Osman Hamdi's unhappiness with his art students' performances, to an avant-garde intellectual trying to hold on to his cultural roots, to a Westerner trying to teach the then-crumbling Ottoman Empire the ways of Europe.
Turkey awaits a crucial decision Friday by leaders of the European Union, which it has been trying to join for decades, on whether it will be accepted for membership talks, and Dostoglu commented on Turkey-EU cultural ties.
"I find it astonishing," Dostoglu said, "that just five days from a crucial decision on its future, in an iffy economic situation -- and on a Sunday to boot -- people managed to spend 10 trillion TL on a sector as fragile as art."
12/13/2004 12:09 GMT - AFP