Osman Hamdi Bey Museum

Osman Hamdi Bey Museum is a museum that has been operating since 1987 in the two‑storey house in the Eskihisar neighbourhood of Gebze district, Kocaeli, where Osman Hamdi Bey spent the summer months of his later life.

It is on a hill parallel to the coast, west of the Eskihisar centre. It has a large collection of Osman Hamdi Bey’s personal belongings, family photographs and a life‑size collection of his paintings. In one of the rooms on the upper floor there is a presentation in which the moment when the painting “Girl Arranging Flowers” was created (the painter working together with the model) is rendered with three‑dimensional models.

During the War of Independence İsmet Paşa stayed in the building for a few days; in 1933 Atatürk stayed in the mansion. The building, expropriated and converted into a museum, was opened to visitors in 1987 as Turkey’s 138th museum.

History

Osman Hamdi Bey bought a plot of land in Eskihisar, which was then a fashionable resort area, during his youth and in 1884 had a mansion built according to a plan he drew himself. From 1884 onward the artist spent almost all his summers in Eskihisar, having a painting studio and a boat house added to the mansion and annexes; he painted flower pictures on the wooden doors of the ground floor of the mansion between 1901 and 1903. The flower paintings on the doors are considered as valuable as the canvases.

During the First World War the mansion was placed under the command of the headquarters commander. During the War of Independence İsmet Paşa stayed in the building for a few days; Atatürk stayed in the mansion in 1933. In 1945 a fire burned the wooden upper floor.

The mansion was registered and nationalized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1966 together with its annexes and park. After restoration works that began in 1985, it started operating as a museum in 1987. The museum, which was under the Kocaeli Museum Directorate until 2006, was transferred to the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality in 2006 and arranged as a gallery-museum; later it was allocated to the Gebze Municipality. A part of the picture gallery in the garden was made available to the public as a workshop where amateur painters can work.

The museum was reassigned to the Kocaeli Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism in 2021. It is closed to visitors until restoration and exhibition-arrangement works are completed.