Osman Hamdi Bey was an Ottoman administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was the Ottoman Empire's first modern archaeologist, and is regarded as the founding father of both archaeology and the museum curator's professions in Turkey. He was the founder of Istanbul Archaeology Museums and of the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts known today as the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. He was also the first mayor of Kadıköy.

Pera Museum is an art museum in the Tepebaşı quarter of the Beyoğlu (Pera) district in Istanbul, Turkey, at Meşrutiyet Avenue No. 65 It has a particular focus on Orientalism in 19th-century art.