Highlights

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  Life on the Sultan Marshes

  Turkey’s Sultan Marshes are a veritable magnet for countless flamingos, teals and other winged visitors, all of them enriching these wetlands with colour and sound. Chris Hellier moves in for a closer look

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  Art from a Distance

  Vanmour and the Guardis, by Jean Michel Casa. An exhibition at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, on Jean-Baptiste Vanmour perhaps the earliest Orientalist painter.



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  Palaces of Diplomacy, Part 1

  The former embassies of Ottoman Istanbul have more of a consular role today but they still evoke the diplomatic rituals of their nineteenth century heyday. In the first of two articles Patricia Daunt traces the history of these spectacular winter palaces, and Fritz von der Schulenburg assembles a unique photographic record of the treasures they contain.



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  A Case of Regency Exoticism

  In 1983 Fani-Maria Tsigakou of the Benaki Museum in Athens found five volumes of late 18th-century drawings of Ottoman Empire subjects by Thomas Hope. David Watkin assesses Hope’s orientalism and its place in the development of Regency style.



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  Soul Fruit

  Long enjoyed for their succulence and their inner beauty, pomegranates have been credited with uplifting properties. Berrin Torolsan presents a selection of recipes using these fascinating jewelled winter fruits