Constantinople: The Telling and the Taking

Guillaume-Joseph Grelot’s Relation nouvelle d’un voyage à Constantinople is the subject of this study, which examines how the author turned his skill as artist into a tool for garnering social and financial advancement. He drew the main sights of Constantinople, which he then had printed up in engravings and published along with his own text recounting his observations and adventures. He dedicated his book to Louis XIV, and his artistic talent was set to advantage and turned to profit. A jarring dissonance between text and image occurs in the book, with implicit messages of conquest implied and performed by both media.