a maltese nobleman whose father wanted him to become a lawyer, so naturally he moved to constantinople and spent the next forty years painting street vendors, coffeehouses, markets, costumes, and everyday ottoman life instead.
before photography made cities endlessly reproducible, preziosi was basically producing hand painted snapshots of istanbul for european travelers. his studio in pera became so well known that even the future king edward vii stopped by and bought his watercolors.
he also worked as a dragoman for foreign embassies and became so associated with the city that ottoman art writers later treated him almost as one of their own painters.
a foreigner who came to paint istanbul and ended up becoming part of its visual memory.
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