The Tortoise Trainer [SEP] creator
The Tortoise Trainer
The Tortoise Trainer (Turkish: "Kaplumbağa Terbiyecisi") is a painting by Osman Hamdi Bey, which was created in 1906 and 1907 (two versions). In 2004 it was sold for $3.5M and is currently displayed at the Pera Museum in Istanbul.
In the "Tortoise Trainer", Osman Hamdi Bey satirises the slow and ineffective attempts at reforming the Ottoman Empire, through the attempts of an anachronistic historical character to train tortoises. The painting depicts an elderly man in traditional Ottoman religious
complicating an assumption of a removed orientalist gaze in his work.
"The Tortoise Trainer".
Hamdi's 1906 painting, "The Tortoise Trainer", holds the record for the most valuable Turkish painting, after being sold for 5 million Turkish Lira (approximately 3.5 million dollars) in December 2004. At the 2004 Artam Antik A.Ç. auction in Istanbul, the Pera Museum and the Turkish Modern Museum fought to acquire the painting, and was ultimately purchased by the Pera Museum. The painting depicts Hamdi's likeness clad in antiquated