The painting "Bosphorus," which had hung on the wall of a house in Izmir for half a century, turned out to be by Maide Esad, one of the first generation of female painters in the Ottoman Empire. The granddaughter of Sadullah Pasha and daughter of Esad Işık Pasha, founder of the first National Congress, Esad was the second student at the Fine Arts Academy, opened for girls in 1914.
In 1972, an unexpected painting entered the lives of dentist Efe Erginer and his family after they returned from Istanbul to Izmir permanently. One of the two paintings presented to them by the poet İdris Pura at his farewell dinner was an oil landscape on canvas. The other was a view of Istanbul painted using a gouache technique, a technique rarely seen before at the time.
At first glance, this painting, which appeared to be an ordinary watercolor, attracted the attention of visitors for years. One day, Erginer's painting was examined closely.
SAILBOATS ON THE KANDILLI HILLS...
The Kandilli hills, the figure of a woman in a robe, sailboats, seagulls, bays, and the vibrant colors caught his attention. When Erginer looked at the small letters in the lower left corner with a magnifying glass, he saw the signature "Muide Esad." From that moment on, he began to trace the artist of the painting in his house. Efe Erginer first asked art historians he knew in Izmir and officials at the State Museum of Painting and Sculpture. However, no one knew the signature. Only that the painting was said to be a "masterpiece," and the artist's identity remained unknown. The search continued in Istanbul.
I TOOK IT TO THE ISLANDS AND ASKED THE GREEKS
In addition to galleries in Nişantaşı and Teşvikiye, he also knocked on the doors of people like Maçka Mezat and antiques expert Rafi Portakal. Everyone praised the painting, but no one had ever heard of "Muide Esad." Erginer shared the information she had obtained about Muide Esad as follows: “Some art historians suggested that the painting might have been painted by one of the women living in the palace. This was because, at the time, talented women of the harem were given private art lessons. This was the answer I felt most comfortable with. I also wondered which district of Istanbul the painting was from. Was it the Bosphorus or the Princes' Islands? To find the answer, I took the painting to the Princes' Islands. The elderly Greek women I met at Aya Yorgi examined the painting at length. One of them said it overlooked Paşabahçe and Kandilli, and in the distance, the beaches of Bebek. She recognized the ‘Gül Cemal Ferry,’ the curves of the coast, and the light of the Bosphorus. At that moment, the painting ceased to be a painting. It became a document reflecting Istanbul in those days.”
HIFZI TOPUZ CONFIRMED
Years passed. One day, journalist Hıfzı Topuz was having a book signing at a bookstore in Izmir. There, he was there, reading a book about the Three Rivers of Çamlıca. I bought the book "Gülü." A month later, while reading it, I found information about Muide, the daughter of Prof. Dr. Esad Işık Pasha, an ophthalmologist and founder of the first National Congress Society. This might be the person I was looking for. I immediately tried to reach Hıfzı Topuz through the publishing house. I mentioned the painting. After a while, we met with Hıfzı Bey, and he recognized the painting the moment he saw it. He said, "Yes, this painting is by Muide Esad. She is the daughter of Prof. Dr. Esad Pasha. She is also a relative of ours. I saw her a few times in my childhood." He then wrote a note in his own handwriting on the back of the painting: "Muide Esad Hanım, the artist of this painting, is the daughter of Prof. Dr. Esad Işık Pasha." Thus, the years of uncertainty ended. The author of the signature was now confirmed as a female painter who entered the art scene during the late Ottoman period but whose name had been forgotten."
THE ACADEMY'S NUMBER TWO STUDENT
While following Muide Esad's trail, Efe Erginer also reached the class of the first female painters: "Muide Esad made history as the number two student at the İnas Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, the women-only Fine Arts Academy that laid the foundation for today's Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Along with Müzdat Sait Arel, the academy's number one student, there were also Belkıs Mustafa, Nazire Hanım, Fahrünnisa Zeyd, and Nazlı Ecevit, mother of Bülent Ecevit, who would become Turkey's Prime Minister. This class of 33 students is known as the first generation in Turkish art history in which women officially entered the academy."
Muide Esad's importance is also recognized in the Galatasaray Exhibitions. Muide Hanım participated in these exhibitions twice. Her works are rarely seen in Turkey. In 1976, her name appeared in a group exhibition at the Taksim Art Gallery. In 2023, a small-format painting of hers was exhibited at the Vehbi Koç Foundation's Meşher Gallery. However, despite her overall significance, Muide Esad has unfortunately become one of the "lost painters" overlooked in art literature. Drawing on all this, I combined her story with the tree in her painting and wrote the novel "The Picture on the Wall."
SADULLAH PASHA'S GRANDCHILD
"Muide Esad's mother's father was Sadullah Pasha, a prominent statesman of the Tanzimat period and known for his still-existing mansion on the Bosphorus. Her father was Esad Pasha, an ophthalmologist who organized the first National Congress. Her brother from her father's second wife, Hasan Esat Işık, would later become Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mueda al-Assad married her father's assistant, an Egyptian doctor, and settled in Cairo. Her surname became "Amin," and they had two children. They immigrated from Egypt to Australia.
Source: https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/tablodaki-sir-osmanlinin-ilk-kadin-ressaminin-gizemli-imzasi-2343760