Hatice Sultan (daughter of Mustafa III)

Hatice Sultan was born on 14 June 1768 in the Topkapı Palace. Her father was Sultan Mustafa III, and her mother was Adilşah Kadın. She had a full sister named Beyhan Sultan, two years elder than her. After her father's death in 1774, when she was six years old, she followed her mother and sister to the Old Palace.[1][2]

On 3 November 1786, her uncle Sultan Abdul Hamid I betrothed her to the guardian of Khotin, Vezir Seyyid Ahmed Pasha. The marriage took place six days later on 9 November, and on the same day her she and her trousseau was carried to her palace[1][2] located in Arnavutköyü.[3]

Hatice remained childless.[3] She was allowed to accompany her husband when he was exiled to İzmit. However, three years later, when he was appointed the governor of Egypt, she had to return to Istanbul.[4] She was widowed at his death in 1798,[5] and like most of the princesses of her generation she didn't remarry.[3][6] Alaeddin Pasha, the son of Damad Seyyid Ahmed Pasha, married her cousin Hibetullah Sultan.[7][8]

Engraving of the Hatice Sultan Mansion, by Antoine Ignace Melling, about 1800

Antoine Ignace Melling, an architect-cum-designer, began working for her in the 1790s. Melling, born in Karlsruhe to a family of artists from Lorraine, lived in Istanbul for eighteen years between 1784 and 1802. The multi-talented artist caught the attention of the princess while working for Friedrich Hübsch, the Danish chargé d’affaires,[9] whom she had visited at his villa in Büyükdere.[10] She was the collector or porcelain, she had developed engrossment of porcelain from Saxony, Vienna and France.[11]

Hatice had been allocated the Neşatabad Palace in 1791, at Defterdarburnu on the European shores of the Bosphorus. The reconstruction of her palace took three years, and was completed in 1794.[9] She took insatiable interest in the decoration of her palace.[12] After her death her palace was allocated to Adile Sultan after her marriage in 1845, she spent her winters in Neşatabad Palace until 1866.[13]

Sultan Selim III is known to have paid frequent visits to his half-sisters, which became all the more regular during Ramadan. He visited Hatice repeatedly for iftar banquets, and even had apartments reserved for overnight stays at Defterdarburnu.[14] Hatice was close to Selim, who cared for her genuinely. Selim shared with her his detailed plans to acquaint the "devout and unbending" Muslims with European arts and civilisation. She appears to have adopted Selim's ideas and preferences as her own.[15]

Melling acquired European goods for Hatice and also taught her the Latin alphabet. Melling's beautiful sketches of the newly built mansions along the waterfront clearly exhibit the influence of French neoclassical, baroque, and rococo styles used in the construction, decoration, and furnishings of the palace of Hatice Sultan and those of other dignitaries in Istanbul.[16]

The letters testify not only to Hatice's insatiable interest in the decoration of her palace, but also to her drive and desire to be in command at all times a few letters concerning some chairs, perhaps (imitations of) French imports in the French kings Louis XV and Louis XVI style, are a case in point. at the time chairs and armchairs were a novelty in Ottoman interiors.[12]

Hatice had an alleged intimate relationship with Melling from 1796 to 1800, after which Selim distanced himself from her. In 1800 Melling was apparently forced to quit her service, and in mid-1802 he left Istanbul for good. Immediately afterwards, Selim recommenced his visits to her.[17]

In 1806, Hatice commissioned a fountain in her name around the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul.[3] In 1805, Hatice Sultan built Adilşah Kadın Mosque, Şişehane Mosque in the memory of her mother.[18]

Hatice Sultan died on 17 July 1822, at the age of fifty four, and was buried in the mausoleum of Mihrişah Sultan located in Eyüp.[19][3] After her death, her belongings were confiscated and sold at auction, her probate inventories included more than five hundred pieces of European porcelain, which appear to have been kept in three different parts of her palace.[20]

• List of Ottoman princesses

• Artan, Tülay (2011). Eighteenth century Ottoman princesses as collectors: Chinese and European porcelains in the Topkapı Palace Museum.
• Davis, Fanny (1986). The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-24811-5.
• Kolay, Arif (2017). Hayırsever, Dindar, Nazik ve Şâire Bir Padişah Kızı: Âdile Sultan.
• Sakaoğlu, Necdet (2008). Bu mülkün kadın sultanları: Vâlide sultanlar, hâtunlar, hasekiler, kadınefendiler, sultanefendiler. Oğlak Yayıncılık. ISBN 978-9-753-29623-6.
• Uluçay, Mustafa Çağatay (2011). Padişahların kadınları ve kızları. Ankara: Ötüken. ISBN 978-9-754-37840-5.