In 1957, a 30-year-old American took his family to Istanbul. It was their first time in the city, and Herbert Brooks Walker and his wife Joan Allen Walker found themselves in the Grand Bazaar where, at an antiques shop, a surprise awaited them. "I saw a big volume with a hard cover," Herbert later remembered. "This was very appealing. The album was the property of the Yusuf Bey's Family and they had given it to the dealer to sell... Yusuf Bey had been a Christian adviser to the Sultan of Turkey. I felt this was an important volume of work. The price was $135."Having recognized the artist's skill, he decided to purchase the volume, but that was before he realized he did not have enough cash with him. The dealer told the American that this was not a problem. "I was asked to send a check to his Swiss bank account when I returned to Abadan and have no further contact with him." With the album in their bag, Walkers left Istanbul and traveled to and up the Nile River. From there they flew to Abadan and when they returned to the U.S., the album was "tucked in with 17 bags of luggage and traveled with my family for nine months until reaching Vermont."This album, now on display at Istanbul's ANAMED gallery on İstiklal Avenue, contains caricatures by Yusuf Franko, an Ottoman diplomat. Produced in between 1884 and 1896, his drawings offer intriguing views of the extremely private world of foreign diplomats. Because of Sultan Abdul Hamid's dislike for too much socializing with foreigners, Yusuf Franko was seen in this group as an exceptional statesman. This inhabitant of Pera was even suspected of spying on his fellow diplomats - some thought his caricatures served an intelligence-gathering purpose.And who were the figures that were caricatured by this extremely talented artist cum diplomat? We have Monsieur Nelidoff, Russian ambassador to Constantinople with the amazing shape of his beard. There is Kürt Şerif Paşa, Turkish envoy to Stockholm who handles the tip of his sharp mustache with pleasure. Members of the British Embassy in Istanbul also make an appearance in a 1888 caricature; they form a rather well-dressed diplomatic team. Gabriel Hanotaux, a French diplomat who later became foreign minister of his country, is portrayed as a skeleton-like figure carrying too much work on his back (because of his affair with a married woman, Hanotaux's Istanbul stay was curtailed). Sir John Henry Fawcett, British Consul General, meanwhile, waits for the boat that will bring him and his son from Tarabya, their private residence, to the consulate in Pera.It was not only diplomats that are featured in Yusuf Bey's album: journalists, too, are there. There is Felicien de Ridder, correspondent of the French Havas new agency, portrayed while playing with ducks. There is Salomon Fernandez, the Jewish financier and community benefactor. Madame Stekoulis, wife of the Ottoman Greek medical doctor representing the Netherlands at Istanbul's International Health Boar also makes an appearance.One of the most entertaining works here is the caricature of Ristow Pasa. This member of the German military training mission is "reported to have had so little to do that he spent most of his time at a beer hall in Pera where he acquired the moniker of Bira Paşa."There are also celebrities here: Italian ballerina Virgini Zucchi, the Armenian music lover Mihran Balassan who plays "Danse Macabre," a famous piano piece by Camille Saint-Saens, and Sarah Bernhardt, the legendary stage actress who visited Istanbul four times in late nineteenth century, all appear as their caricature selves."It is a stroke of pure luck that Yusuf Bey's album of brilliant watercolor and pencil originals has survived in undamaged and intact condition," Ömer Koç writes in the exhibition catalogue. "It was for nearly 60 years in a private collection abroad. This album contains fine specimens of world class art, which skillfully satirize the Ottoman administrative cadres of the 19th century, their relationships, and the personnel of embassies through their political stance and through moments from their daily lives."The album became part of Koç's collection shortly after it was sent to Aga Khan Museum. The Walker family had proposed to sell the album to that institution when, in 2016, Turkish curator and art expert Bahattin Öztuncay made a move to buy it for the Ömer Koç collection. "On March 23, 2016, in a hotel lobby in Reykjavik, I finally achieved my goal," he writes in the exhibition catalogue, describing his meeting with one of the heirs of the family. "Brooks Walker and I celebrated our unique deal in a fish restaurant over an ugly looking but great tasting catfish (Atlantic wolf fish) and beer. This superb album which I brought the next day to Istanbul via Amsterdam hence returned to its birthplace." If only Yusuf Franko could be there to draw this encounter.In 1896, quite a long time before his death in 1933, Franko stopped producing his caricatures. It is not known exactly why he did stop drawing but there are clues in "Expiation," the last caricature in Yusuf Bey's album. There the artist is placed in the gallows. The subjects of his caricatures pull the ropes. His neck is broken, his pencil dropped, his blood colored tongue sticking out of his mouth. In another corner, fellow diplomats watch the execution of their friend with indifference.