Hatice Sultan (1766-1821)
Encyclopedia
Mustafa III
Mustafa III was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1757 to 1774. He was a son of Sultan Ahmed III and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid I . He was born in Edirne...
and sister of Selim III
Selim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
. She was married in 1787 to Hotin Nakîb-mc-es-Sayyid Ahmed Pasha.
Hatice was very close to her brother Selim, and played an important role during his reign in 1789-1807 as his influential confidant. She formed a close relationship to the architect Antoine Ignace Melling
Antoine Ignace Melling
Antoine Ignace Melling 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...
. At Hatice Sultan's suggestion, Melling was employed as Imperial Architect by Selim III. In 1795 the princess commissioned Melling to design a labyrinth
Labyrinth
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos...
for her palace at Ortaköy
Ortaköy
Ortaköy is a neighbourhood, formerly a small village, within the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, located in the middle of the European bank of the Bosphorus....
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
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
for her. She employed him to repair her Palace Neşetâbâd in 1804. She corresponded with him in Turkish written with Latin letters. In 1809, she bought land in companionship with her sister, Beyhan Sultan (1765-1824), and her cousin Esma Sultan (1778-1848), upon where she had Melling construct the Hatice Sultan Palace
Hatice Sultan Palace
The Hatice Sultan Palace , a historical yalı located at Bosporus in Ortaköy neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey and named after its original owner Hatice Sultan, is used today as a water sports club's building....
. The palace became reputed in all Europe and also led to criticism against the sultan and talked about as a palace of pleasure.