ABSTRACT Thomas Allom’s Istanbul and China Engravings: A Homogenized Image of Two Baroque Worlds Keywords image, engraving, reality, picturesque, representation Thomas Allom (1804-1872), who was working as an architectural perspectivist and topographic illustrator at Francis Goodwin’s workshop, receives a job offer from someone who saw his drawings at a publishing house. The offer comes from Fisher, Son & Co., a competitor of George Virtue. Allom’s task is to illustrate albums. After producing various works that required him to travel around England, in 1837 Fisher assigns him to a project that involves overseas travelling for the first time. His task is to draw sketches in Turkey for a book entitled Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. The second big project Allom contributed to was an album entitled China in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture and Social Habits of that Ancient Empire, published in 1843. Thanks to his extensive preparation, he did not have to travel to China for this album. Consulting the works of other painters and travelers who have travelled to China before, and taking advantage of the perspective that an album is expected to present, Allom managed to produce the images he intended. This research paper discusses the relationship between reality and representation through the engravings of Istanbul, and China made by Thomas Allom in the first half of the 19th century. The effects of printmaking technology in the production of images of environment, the intellectual breach enacted by the photograph as a symbolic form even before it became a prevalent medium, and the details on which such effects were projected (architectural, natural, and cultural) are examined in relation to the works of Allom and his predecessors. The main task of this research is to elucidate the intricate relationship between (a) the medium/technique employed in the production of image (b) the gaze of the subject as a stranger that distances itself from the external world and (c) the orientalist form that this gaze assumes under the influence of a imperial meta-discourse. 1