Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace

View of the Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace, which used to be located on the European side of the Bosphorus, where the Dolmabahçe Palace now stands. It was demolished in 1843.
The buildings depicted in this illustration were the residence of one Said Pasha, married to Mihrimah Sultan, daughter of Mahmud II. In the same complex of palaces could be found that of the Sultan’s sister, of his daughter Saliha, and that of her husband. It is described by the author, with no excessive indulgence, as follows:

The first objects that present themselves on ascending the Bosphorus, are the palaces of the several female members of the imperial family, hanging, as it were, over the water. They display long fronts, with coarse balconies of wood, having little of architectural beauty to recommend them. Each balcony is supported by sloping beams of timber, the upper projecting beyond the lower, so as to impend over the water, leaving a narrow quay as the public street beneath. The windows are closed up with more than Turkish jealousy. The lattices are dense and impervious to all view, leaving only one minute aperture, to which the inmate of the harem applies her eye when she wishes to contemplate the busy and living picture continually before her.