Portrait of the sultan Mehmet II

Gentile Bellini[1], official painter of the Venetian Aristocracy, painted this portrait during his stay in the Ottoman court from 1479 to 1481. The work is extremely famous for good reason. It reflects the nature and the terms of the diplomatic relations between the Italian city and the Ottoman Empire at the end of the fifteenth century, at the same time as the Cosmopolitan climate which reigned at the court of Mehmet II (r. 1451-1481), who was fond of western culture.

The sultan is presented as a bust inside a blind arch resting on a marble base covered in a luxurious cloth. Richly clothed, he stands out from a dark background, under a decorated arcade. The composition is rigorous. The depth is created by the architecture painted in the foreground, according to a technique inherited from antique Roman gravestones and fifteenth century Flemish painting[2]. Two groups of three crowns, the idea taken from bronze medals drawn by Bellini for Mehmet II[3] a few years earlier occupy the upper corners of the canvas, symbolising the extent of Ottoman power over Greece, Azia and Trebizond. The arch and pillars are decorated with motifs from the Venetian quattrocento repertory, present in the architectural décor and painting of the end of the fifteenth century. The embroidered cloth encrusted with jewels with a crown reflects the taste – very developed at the time – for rich textiles, both in Venice and in the Ottoman Empire. It introduces a great preciousness into the painting, reinforced by the finesse of the gildings decorating the arcade. It is a true showcase for the representation.

The three-quarters bust position confers a true vitality to this portrait of an elderly man, the end of whose reign was already forecast at the Ottoman court[4]. This choice is an innovation in Bellini’s career: his previous models were painted in profile in a hieratic position inherited from medal art[5]. Particular car was given to the textures of the clothing and the turban. Their softness and velveteen texture contrasts with the fine, almost sharp lines of the contour of the emaciated, bearded and moustached face with aquiline nose and thin eyebrows. The portrait gives us a true psychological image, reflecting the soul of an elderly person with a look and lines still hinting vivacity, the same that had made Constantinople fold in 1453, as recalled by the inscription Victor orbis: “conqueror of the world”.

This painting saw real posterity in the representations of Mehmet II in Italy[6], where the work returned probably from the sixteenth century, maybe sold by his son Bâyâzid II; his influence is perceptible until Nevers in the seventeenth century[7].

We can also discern similarities in the shape of the sultan’s face as it is depicted here, and other portraits of the same sovereign by Turkish artists of the same period[8], including Nakkas Sinan Beg[9] and Nigari. On a wider level, it is western painting that works its way into Turkish painting: the close framing was also re-used in the portrait of Barberossa by Nigari in the middle of the 16th century[10]. Great attention was granted to the rendering of textures, and the faces are filled with a certain realism. This was the beginning of the great rise of the portrait genre in the sixteenth century under the patronage of Suleiman and Murâd III[11], even though at the origin it was in contradiction with the precepts of Islam. This vogue was not limited to Ottoman Turkey: the sovereigns of Safavid Iran and Moghul India were also the subjects of many painted works.

[2] Dirck Bouts, Virgin with child in a stone crib, Netherlands, 1465-1475, Paris, musée du Louvre, Painting department, inv. M.I.734.

[3] Bronze medals probably molten by Bartolomeo Bellano, Istanbul, end 1479 - beginning 1480, London, British Museum (inv. CM 1883.3-3.1) and Venice, Galleria G.Franchetti alla Ca’d’Oro (inv. ME 88).

[4] “In the year 1480, the successes of the Sultan will decrease, and he himself will die soon”, wrote Giovanni Nanni, a Dominican monk. In: Thuasne, L., Gentile Bellini and Sultan Mohammed II, p. 51.

[5] Cf. note no. 3.

[6] Portrait of Mehmet II by an anonymous Venetian associate with Gentile Bellini, Venice, c. 1510, Singapore, Joli Quentin Kansil collection.

[7] Square with turban wearer (maybe Suleiman the Magnificent), earthenware, Nevers, seventeenth century, Nevers, Frédéric Blandin museum.

[8] Portrait of Mehmet II the Conqueror, Turkey, Istanbul, c.1479-1481, watercolours and gold on paper, Istanbul,Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi Library, inv. H2153, f. 145v°.

[9] Mehmet II smelling a rose, Istanbul, c.1480, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi Library, inv. H2153, fol. 10°r.

[10] Cf. the portrait of Barberossa by Nigari, Istanbul, Turkwy, c. 1540-1545, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi Library, inv. H.2134, fol. 9v° or the portrait of Mehmet II by an anonymous Turk, Istanbul, c. 1479-1481, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi Topkapi, inv. H. 2153, fol. 145v°.

[11] Murâd III had the poet Sayyid Loqmân and the painter Osman create cycles of dynastic portraits which make up the different copies of the Kytafetü’l-insaiye fi semâ’iü’l-osmaniye (“Human physiognomy on the Ottoman temperament”).