Ad99999 06 094a/eng
Der Brunnen Top-Hané zu Constantinopel
Beschreibungstext eng
Misc. Subj. CXXX. Vol. VI. No. 92., THE FOUNTAIN CALLED TOP HANÈ AT CONSTANTINOPLE., This remarkable and magnificent fountain, situated in Top-.Hanc, one of the suburbs of Constantinople, whence its name derives, has been lately copied for the first time by the germ an artist Melling, architect to the Sultana Hadidge, the distrustful Turks seldom permitting something to be copied from their publick buildings. This monument is notable because it gives a perspicuous idea of the st)le and art of decorating of the Mahometans. The Sultan Mikmud caused this fountain to be built in 1733 as a work of beneficence, in order to provide this part of Constantinople with good water as well as with a place for performing the religious washings that are in use among the Turks. The inferior part of the edifice is incrusted with white marble, the surface of which being most elegantly adorned with several gilded volutes, ornaments and sentences of the Alcoran, the holy book of the Turks. Notwithstanding there are to be found no Fig. ures of men or animals, which is prohibited according to the turkish faith. Above the inferior part of the building, that has 25 feet in square and a spring on each of these four sides, stands out a pentice of 16 feet which gives the most agreeable shade. A vaulted roof adorned with 16 turrets terminates the whole in an elegant manner. Near the fountain we see some Turks occupied by their holy washings and next to these a group of turkish women. In th« fore-ground drives a turkish coach all over furnished with lattica - windows, wherein th« women of the Turks take the air.
