Crescent

The tughra did not appear on the Duloz and Empire stamps (first printed 1865 and 1876 respectively), the design of which coincided with the high point of the Tanzimât era under Sultan Abdülaziz III. (Abdulhamid was crowned in 1876, but after Empire stamps were issued).

The tughra was considered old fashioned by the modernisers, not least of whom was Sultan Abdülaziz. The crescent and star offered a much more up-to-date symbol.

With the Tanzimât reforms in the 19th century, flags were redesigned in the style of the European armies of the day. The reforms abolished all the various flags and standards of the Ottoman pashaliks, beyliks and emirates and a single new Ottoman national flag was designed to replace them. The result was the red flag with the white crescent moon and star.

The crescent and star as an emblem of nationhood was very much a product of the Tanzimât reform era. Thus the designs of the Duloz and Empire stamps were products of Tanzimât inspired thinking also.

The crescent and star designs went hand in hand with Abdülaziz’s concern to progress the reforms started by his father Mahmut II, and continued by his brother Abdülmecit.

Abdülaziz was also the first Ottoman ruler to travel outside the Ottoman Empire on a State visit. He travelled to France and stayed in Paris as the guest of Napoleon III. Afterwards Abdülaziz travelled to London as Queen Victoria’s guest and on his way back stayed in Austria as Emperor Franz Joseph’s guest. He would have been well aware of developments in the western world.

Sultan Abdülaziz was not impressed with the design of the first Ottoman stamps, which he thought reflected badly on the Empire. After the Tughra stamps were put in use, he sketched some stamp patterns personally and sent them to the famous calligrapher Vahdet Sevket Bey who was in London at the time, appointing him to complete the designs.

The first Ottoman stamps had been printed in Istanbul but were seen as low in quality in comparison with the stamps of western countries. So postal officials decided to have the new crescent and star design printed in Paris as the Greeks had begun to do some two years earlier.

The stamps were impressed at the Poitevin printing house in Paris. The artist who prepared the stamps was Duloz and these stamps were named Duloz stamps after him.

Bearing a new national symbol and printed to the highest western standards, the Duloz issue was emblematic of the Tanzimât era.

Duloz stamp

© John Dunn.