An album of photographs commemorating the visit of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar to the Ottoman Court at Constantinople in 1900, taken by Ali Sami Bey, chief photographer for Sultan Abdülhamid II, in a fine contemporary binding by August Tarnawski Ottoman Turkey, Constantinople, 1900An album of photographs commemorating the visit of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar to the Ottoman Court at Constantinople in 1900, taken by Ali Sami Bey, chief photographer for Sultan Abdülhamid II, in a fine contemporary binding by August Tarnawski Ottoman Turkey, Constantinople, 1900oblong folio album, 68 gelatin silver prints on 35 card sheets printed with ornamental borders, 24 larger images mounted one per page, 44 smaller images mounted 4 per page, all recto only, the opening image with handwritten captions in ink in Ottoman Turkish on mount, contemporary full red morocco gilt, the covers with blind- and gilt-ruled borders enclosing an elaborate decorative border in gilt and green morocco onlays, each with a shaped centre panel cut away to reveal a brown morocco panel with gilt decoration of (upper cover) the star and crescent within ornamental frame, and (lower cover) the imperial insignia (comprising weapons, medals and flags), spine tooled in gilt larger photographs approx. 260 x 200 mm.; smaller photographs approx. 110 x 80 mm.; mounts 343 x 410 mm.; album 355 x 450 mm.The album includes formal portraits of the Shah and his high-ranking entourage, and scenes depicting his stay in Constantinople, including his arrival by train, a voyage along the Bosphorus, visits to the Dolmabahçe Palace and Ortaköy Mosque, official greeting parties, and the Yalta Palace where the Shah stayed.The photographs were taken by Ali Sami Bey, chief photographer for Sultan Abdülhamid II from 1892 until the Sultan's deposition in 1909, who 'was present for the Persian Shah's visit and produced commemorative albums almost immediately for presentation to the Sultan and the Shah, among others' (see A. Behdad and L. Gartin, Photography's Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation, 2013).A gold embossed legend in Ottoman Turkish on the inside front cover of the binding reads: muhalled hazret-i shahriyari aghust tarnavski, 'His Perpetual Royal Excellence, August Tarnawski', followed by an address in Beyoglu. A certain August Tarnawski or Tarnavski, clearly of Polish origin, and possibly one of the many aristocratic Polish emigres living in the Ottoman Empire, was an Istanbul bookbinder, whose name appears on the bindings of postcard albums purchased in Constantinople.