- Public Talk
Lusail Museum Conversations
At the Empire’s Edge: Art, Authority, and Reform in Nineteenth Century Tunis
About
The visit to Paris of Ahmed Bey, the ruler of Tunis, in 1846-the first ever by a Muslim ruler in France-marked a turning point in the visual and ceremonial language of the Tunisian state. In the following decades, the Beys of Tunis positioned their country at a dynamic crossroads of Ottoman reform, Mediterranean diplomacy, and the emerging aesthetics of modern statehood. This lecture explores the artistic strategies that they used in an era of cultural change across the Ottoman world.
