Artamonoff: Picturing Byzantine Istanbul 1930–1947

Tekfur Sarayı (Palace of Porphyrogennetos), south facade, May 1937.

This Byzantine palace (possibly thirteenth century), built between the inner and outer Land Walls, is the only example of Byzantine domestic architecture in Istanbul. Alexander Van Millingen (1899) had dedicated a chapter to Tekfur Sarayı. In the 1920s and 1930s, German archaeologists B. Meyer-Plath and A.M. Schneider revisited it during their survey of the Land Walls of the city. In this photograph, Artamonoff captured not only the Byzantine structure, but everyday life in the shadow of Byzantine remains: wooden houses surrounded by monumental walls, a donkey grazing, and two young men smiling at the photographer.