Last May, Osman Hamdi Bey's painting named "Preparing Coffee” dating back to 1881 was sold at Sotheby's auction house in London for 1.16 million pounds ($1.58 million) in an auction titled "Orientalist Art.” In addition to becoming the most expensive Osman Hamdi Bey artwork ever sold, it also became the most expensive work of Turkish painting. In the painting, the two female figures, dressed in traditional Ottoman clothing, were depicted preparing coffee in an interior space believed to be a fictional harem chamber in Topkapı Palace. The painting reflected the classic style of Osman Hamdi Bey through the tiles on the walls, the mother-of-pearl inlaid wooden door and a section of the 88th verse of the Surah Hud written in Kufic script above.

I will not discuss where the painting had been until now or how it came into the auction house's possession. However, I will also not read this painting merely as a scene of visual elegance, because that would be an incomplete reading. I will touch on the concept of Orientalism, which has come to my attention again with this painting. Osman Hamdi Bey's paintings, which have been increasing in value day after day, are not merely a reflection of culture. They are also part of a long-standing debate about the representation of the East, the view of the West and whether Osman Hamdi is included in this dual narrative or not.

West built, eyes on East

Orientalism is the West's way of representing the East according to its own imagination. According to Edward Said's groundbreaking analysis, this is not merely a cultural aesthetic preference, but also a power strategy: the West re-creates itself while defining the East. In the words of Ziyaüddin Serdar, Orientalism is "the history of the West itself.” There lies a consciousness that actually looks at itself in reverse while looking at the East. And at the root of this gaze lies the fixation of the East as an irrational, unchanging, exotic and backward image.

The century in which this fixed image of the East was most often transferred to canvas was undoubtedly the 19th century. Western painters - especially names such as Gerome, Boulanger and Delacroix – decorated the Ottoman geography with female bodies, bathhouses, mosques, swords, desert scenes and ethnographic details. In these paintings, violence, eroticism, exoticism and passivity are intertwined. The aesthetic style of Orientalist painting is "highly photographic,” "static,” "timeless” and psychologically detached from the viewer. The viewer observes the East from the outside and from above.

The West has always preferred to glorify its own narrative of progress rather than historical facts. By presenting the East as merely an object of observation, a collection of pasts, a frozen moment in time, it creates a mirror that highlights its own dynamism and modernity. However, this mirror is one-sided. The West's perception of the East renders its cultural and intellectual dependence on the East invisible. In reality, as we all know, without the East's accumulated knowledge – from ancient philosophy to medicine, architecture to mathematics – Western mind could not have reached its current state.

In this sense, we can interpret Orientalism not only as a form of domination but also as a relationship of necessity and a form of silent dependence.

Was Osman Hamdi Bey Orientalist?

Osman Hamdi Bey's paintings stand outside the construct of "Western Orientalism.” His figures neither has that frozen perfection nor an erotic implication. As Uğur Tanyeli emphasizes, Osman Hamdi Bey's figures evoke a sense of "participating actors” rather than a "distance” between the viewer and the artwork. Especially in his female figures - the area most often eroticized by Western painters - Osman Hamdi emphasizes privacy, interiority and mental activity. As Germaner and İnankur point out, none of Osman Hamdi Bey's paintings eroticizes female figures. This is not merely an aesthetic choice but also related to the culture in which he was raised and the government mission he was assigned.

Indeed, when we look into his years in Paris, where he first came into contact with art and painting, we encounter an interesting detail: long before the debates about whether Osman Hamdi Bey was an Orientalist or not, he himself became the subject of an Orientalist painting. Gustave Boulanger exhibited his portrait at the 1865 Paris Salon: "Portrait de Hamdy Bey.” Next to it was a typical Orientalist painting titled "Djeid et Rabia” (Ceyd and Rabia), depicting horsemen in the Algerian desert. Thus, Osman Hamdi Bey became a figure in the West’s narrative of the East before he even began to tell his own story. Perhaps this is why, when he later constructed his own narrative, he distanced himself from this false exoticism.

Eastern fantasy

What we see in Osman Hamdi Bey's artworks is not an "Eastern fantasy,” but an insider's perspective. He approaches everyday life without idealizing it or exoticizing it from the outside. One concrete example of this perspective is the painting "Preparing Coffee,” which influenced my decision to write this article. A woman in a yellow dress is the focal point of the painting. This female figure also appears in the artist's earlier works, such as "Girl Reciting Quran (1880)," "The Girl with Vase (1883)," "After Iftar (1886)" and "Genesis (1901)," which is lost now. This figure is not merely decorative but also a narrative vehicle. This repetition is the artist's way of constructing his message in different compositions rather than being related to the figure's identity. Osman Hamdi Bey criticized the lifestyle of the Ottoman people during his lifetime. This was due to both his education abroad and his social circle. In his paintings, he often depicts women, mostly the woman dressed in yellow, emphasizing the great need for a change in society.

What distinguishes Osman Hamdi Bey from Western Orientalist painters is not only the content but also the context and purpose. He is not an artist who describes the East, but one who speaks from the East. With his paintings, he both conveys the cultural reform efforts of the Ottoman elite and offers a counter-narrative to the West from within. He is not an Orientalist because he does not view the East from the outside. Since he comes from within this culture, he paints a true-to-life East, not the East imagined by the West. In short, he is an artist who paints Orientalist figures but is not an Orientalist.

Will Orientalism die out?

The term Orientalism was abolished in 1973 as a result of a vote at the 29th Congress of Orientalists. However, less than 50 years ago, no one took offense at this term, which was used to describe the East and Eastern peoples. Then, as Edward Said emphasized, Orientalism came to be accepted not as a simple prejudice but as a power relationship and a form of discourse. However, the media, popular culture and art continue to allow this discourse to persist in various forms. In the modern world, encountering stereotypes about the "East” highlights the importance of developing critical literacy in these areas and building multifaceted, in-depth understandings of different cultures. Fighting Orientalism requires not only "saving” the "East” but also questioning the West's own identity and worldview. A Western collector might still view Osman Hamdi Bey's painting as an exotic window. But we can see that coffee is not just a beverage, but a meaning, a representation, a memory. Just as in the appearance of the woman in the yellow dress before us in a different composition each time.