Antoine Ignace Melling

Antoine Ignace Melling (27 April 1763 – November 1831) was a painter, architect and voyager who is counted among the “Levantine Artists”. He is famous for his vedute of Constantinople, a town where he lived for 18 years. He was imperial architect to Sultan Selim III and Hatice Sultan and later landscape painter to the Empress Josephine of France. His most influential work is published as Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore.

Melling's two given names are often written in hyphenated form as Antoine-Ignace.

Melling was born Anton Ignaz Melling in Karlsruhe, Baden, in 1763. After the death of his sculptor father, he lived with his painter uncle, Joseph Melling, in Strassbourg (Alsace). As a young man he visited his older brother, and studied Architecture and Mathematics at Klagenfurt. At the age of 19, he went to Italy, Egypt, and finally Constantinople as a member of the Russian Ambassador's retinue and household with the aim of drawing pictures for various dignitaries. He was introduced to princess Hatice Sultan, sister and confidant of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III.

At Hatice Sultan's suggestion, Melling was employed as Imperial Architect by Selim III. In 1795 the princess commissioned Melling to design a labyrinth for her palace at Ortaköy in the style of the Danish ambassador Baron Hübsch's garden. Delighted with the result, she asked Melling to redecorate the palace interior, and subsequently, a completely new neoclassical palace at Defterdarburnu. He also designed clothes and jewellery for her.

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