The entourage of the Marquis de Ferriol, newly appointed ambassador of the French government, finally reached Istanbul in 1699 following a long and arduous voyage. Emerging on deck, the passengers shared the joy of arriving in the mysterious city they had heard about in legends and seen in engravings. What they saw dazzled their eyes. The leaden domes of its mosques and churches sparkling in the rising sun, the city was slowly waking up from sleep. As Ambassador Ferriol thrilled to the sight of the palace in the distance, a man standing next to him was speechless with pleasure. Clearly this magnificent city enchanted him more than anyone else. He was the Dutch painter Jean Baptiste Vanmour. After surveying the scene with his painter’s eye, his glance fell upon the people waiting on the quay. Their countenances were sad: the Siege of Vienna had ended in failure in 1683, and the Ottoman Empire had ceded territory for the first time in the 1699 Treaty of Carlowitz.