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The Camondos and Their Imprint on 19th-Century Istanbul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Nora Seni
Nora Seni
Affiliation:
Institut Français d'Urbanisme, Université de Paris VIII, 4, rue Nobel, Cité Descartes—Champs-sur-Marne, 77436 Marne-la-Vallée Cedex 02, France.
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Extract

In cities like Paris and London in the 19th century, the leading bankers not only supported the developing industrialization but also established practices that determined the nature of their charitable and philanthropic activity and their patronage of the arts. They supported scientific and archaeological research as well. The recurrence of these practices over the century is increasingly recognized and would justify investigation to uncover the underlying rules that governed the activities of bankers outside the financial sphere. In other words, it would justify research in terms of the anthropology of bankers. One aspect that has, so far, received insufficient attention is the impact these bankers had on cities—both in their role as builders and protectors of schools and hospitals and in the imprint they made on the urban landscape. In housing, for example, the Stern, Heine, and Weill families established foundations in Paris for the construction of HBM (habitat bon marché, low-cost housing), and architects adopted by the great banking families, such as William Bouwens, chosen by the banker Henri Germain to build the Parisian headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais, designed the great undertakings of the Parisian Belle Époque.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , November 1994 , pp. 663 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

1 Bergeron, Louis, Les Rothschilds et les autres: La gloire des banquiers (Paris: Perrin, 1991), 152Google Scholar.

2 For the saga of the Camondo family, see Nora Seni and Sophie le Tarnec, Les Camondo ou I'Eclipse d'une Fortune (forthcoming).

3 For the document from the Vienna Archives (1873) leasing to TriesteGoogle Scholar, see Jamgocyan, Onnik, “Les Finances de I'Empire ottoman et les financiers de Constantinople, 1732–1853,” 2 vols. (Thesis, University of Paris, 1988), 2:517Google Scholar.

4 For a discussion of the banking family strategies, see Seni, Nora, “Finances ottomanes et figures levantines,” in L'Accession de la Turquie à la civilisation industrielle, ed. Thobie, Jacques, Bacqué-Grammont, Jean Louis (Istanbul, 1987), 13–24Google Scholar.

5 Ganiage, Jean, Les origines du protectorat français en Tunisie (Paris, 1959), 639–42Google Scholar.

6 National Archives, Paris, Camondo Collection.

7 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, letter from MoÏse de Camondo (Istanbul) to Abraham and Nissim de Camondo (Paris), 12 06 1888Google Scholar.

8 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, letter from MoÏse to Nissim and Abraham de Camondo, 16 06 1888Google Scholar.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, land inventory by Léonce Tedeschi.

12 Galante, Avram, Histoire des Juifs d'istanbul (Istanbul, 1941), 41–45Google Scholar.

13 Rosenthal, Steven, “Foreigners and Municipal Reform in Istanbul: 1855–1865,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1980): 228Google Scholar.

14 For a discussion on this subject, see Rosenthal, Steven, The Politics of Dependency (London: Greenwood Press, 1980),Google Scholar and Celik, Zeynep, The Remaking of Istanbul (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 80.

16 Ibid., 82.

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18 Archives Museum, Nissim de Camondo, correspondence between Abraham Behor and Nissim Camondo (10–11 1868)Google Scholar.

19 Bergeron, , Les Rothschilds, 153Google Scholar.

20 L'indicateur ottoman, annuaire-almanach du commerce, de l'industrie de l'administration et la magistrature (Constantinople, 1881), 372Google Scholar.

21 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, “Particulier,” 1873–1874Google Scholar.

22 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, letter from Abraham Camondo (Paris) to the Camondo Bank at Constantinople, 28 10 1873Google Scholar.

23 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, file 52Google Scholar.

24 National Archives, Paris, Camondo Collection, Building Administration Register 1881Google Scholar.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

28 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, letter to Isaac Fernandez, 29 03 1904Google Scholar.

29 Annuaire-indicateur Ottoman 1915, 1172Google Scholar.

30 Archives Nissim de Camondo Museum, Tedeschi's notebook.

31 National Archives, Paris, Camondo Collection, Building Administration Registers, 1874, 1881Google Scholar.

32 Celik, , Remaking of Istanbul, 84Google Scholar.

33 Statuts de la Société des Tramways de Constantinople (Constantinople, 1870), Art. 1Google Scholar.