AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Germans in Constantinople – study

Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

(recto) Germans in Constantinople – study (aka The Germans are Trying To Make Themselves at Home in Constantinople), 1916 (signed and inscribed 'The Germans are trying to make themselves at home in Constantinople')
Pencil, 22.6 cm x 17.1 cm

(verso) Four fragmentary studies: for Germans in Constantinople (two), of a messenger approaching a seated dignity, and of two people seated at a table as a drink is being poured

The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on the side of Germany and the Central Powers in October 1914. An American resident in Constantinople throughout the war later reported that 'The lack of regulation of the food supply and higher pay for foreign service made life so much pleasanter in Constantinople than in Berlin that Germans openly expressed a preference for a billet in the Turkish capital during the latter part of the war . . . Their drinking of beer and champagne in the restaurants, their dances and chamber-music, were carried on in Constantinople much as if there were no war, and they enjoyed all kinds of special privileges' – Barnette Miller, 'Constantinople Under the Germans 1917–1918', Yale Review, vol. ix, no. 2 (January 1920), pp. 314–29.
PROVENANCE: Sotheby's 11 Dec. 1968 (as The Germans are Trying To Make Themselves at Home in Constantinople, with The Flying Dutchman and four other sheets, £150) > ? Williams > ? > Sotheby's 21 Nov. 1973 (as The Germans are Trying To Make Themselves at Home in Constantinople, £140) > J. R. Seymour > private collection > Bonhams 18 June 2025 (estimate £10,000–£15,000; unsold)