Name Yervant Voskan | Died 1914 | |
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Yervant Voskan (Armenian: Երվանդ Հակոբի Ոսկան), also known as Osgan Efendi (Armenian: Երվանդ Ոսկան or Yervant Osman Efendi ; 1855 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire – 1914) was a famed Ottoman painter, sculptor, instructor, and administrator of Armenian descent. He is considered the first sculptor of Turkey.
Life
Yervant Voskan was born in 1855 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, son of writer Hagop Voskan (1825 - 1907), and grandson of Voskan Gotogyan of Erzurum who was a foundryman at the Imperial Mint. After receiving his primary education from his father, he attended the Catholic Armenian Makruhyan School in Besiktas. In 1866 he went to Venice to study at the Murad Raphaelian School. He also studied in France and when he returned home he helped in the founding of the department of sculpture at the school of fine arts and was appointed as teacher of the department when the school was founded. He began teaching sculpture in the academy on March 1, 1883. At the time, he was the only professor of sculpture in the Ottoman Empire. He along with Osman Hamdi Bey conducted the first scientific based archaeological in the history of the Ottoman Empire. His archeological research included the Commagene tomb-sanctuary in Nemrut Dağı in southeastern Anatolia and the Alexander Sarcophagus in Sidon. He was the chief restorer of the Sarcophagus. Yervant Voskan eventually retired from the academy in 1908 and died only 6 years later.