In 1925 Edoardo De Nari was commissioned to build a villa right on the edge of the Bosphorus crossing in Istanbul. The patron, Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan, simply wanted a summer house for the family, and De Nari delivered with a full-realised recreation of a modern yet classically-minded villa.⁣

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In 1951, the mansion found a new owner - an industrialist named Hacı Ömer Sabancı, one of the most influential people in the entire country, and the name behind a company that to this day remains as one of the largest and wealthiest companies in the region. It became his family residence, renamed to “The Mansion With The Horse”, in reference to the original 1864 statue by French sculptor Louis Doumas in the gardens. A second equine sculpture soon followed, a re-cast version of a looted sculpture from the Crusades, which was taken to Venice in the 13th Century.⁣

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After Sabancı passed away in the mid-1960s, the house remained the family residence until it was gifted to his eponymous university to be transformed into a museum. Today, it hosts a collection of calligraphies and scriptures which were curated by Hacı Ömer Sabancı, as well as a selection of modern works in a gallery annex. It’s exhibited everything from artefacts from the Genghis Khan’s Mogolian horde, to Picassos paintings, and Rodin sculptures.⁣

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