Sadberk Hanım Müzesi

Lonely Planet review

North of the village of Tarabya are some of the old summer embassies of foreign powers. When the heat and fear of disease increased in the warm months, foreign ambassadors would retire to palatial residences, complete with lush gardens, on this shore. The region for such embassy residences extended north to the village of Büyükdere, notable for its churches, summer embassies and the Sadberk Hanım Müzesi.

Named after the wife of the late Vehbi Koç, founder of Turkey's foremost commercial empire in 1926, the museum is a showcase for her extraordinary private collection of antiquities and Ottoman heirlooms. Labels are in English and Turkish.

The original museum building is a graceful old yalı, once the summer residence of Manuk Azaryan Efendi, an Armenian who was speaker of the Ottoman parliament. It houses artefacts and exhibits such as beautiful İznik and Kütahya ceramics, and Ottoman silk textiles and needlework. A number of rooms in the great old house have been arranged and decorated in Ottoman style.

The collections in the new building, which is beside the original yalı, include an exquisite collection of diadems from the Mycenaean, Archaic and Classical periods, as well as Ottoman and Roman.