Just over fifty years after Gentile Bellini produced what has now become the iconic image of Mehmed the Conqueror, another set of exchanges between the Serenissima and the Sublime Porte led to the canonical image of his descendant Süleyman the Magnificent in his middle years.

This painting is a newly found version of this likeness, showing Süleyman The Lawgiver - Kanuni Suleyman, as Turks know him (1494-1566) - allegedly at the age of forty-three. This was about the time he conquered Iraq from the Safavids of Iran and roundly defeated the fleet assembled by the Pope and his allies at the Battle of Preveza.

This painting is not inscribed with his age, but relates directly to two other examples that are. One, now in the Uffizi in Florence (fig.1), was copied for Cosimo de' Medici some time between 1552 and 1568. The other (fig.2) was copied for the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria between 1578 and 1599 to hang at Schloss Ambras in Innsbruck. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Both versions were copied directly from a painting owned by Paolo Giovio, a humanist and historian, whose collection of more than four hundred portraits, most with commentaries on the life and achievements of the person portrayed, was the locus classicus for Renaissance historical portraiture. In the only other known painting at the age forty-three, the Sultan wears an earring. This flaccid derivative was installed by Paul Ardier, former treasurer to Henri IV of France, in the portrait gallery (Galerie des Illustres) he assembled from 1617 to 1638 at the Chateau de Beauregard, near Blois (Mucem: Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille).

The present painting perhaps more vividly than any of the other known versions, captures the way Süleyman was described by a member of a Venetian delegation to Istanbul in 1534 - large black eyes, more compassionate than cruel, an aquiline nose slightly too large for his other features, a beard not shaven but cut close with scissors, long, red moustaches, and a long and slender neck.

It conveys Süleyman’s acuity more forcefully than the other examples. In colouring and brushwork it is more Venetian than the Uffizi version, the smoothness of which betray the fact that the painter, Cristofano dell'Altissimo, had worked under Pontormo and Bronzino. Ardier’s version lacks presence and suffuses Süleyman in an orange glow. Intriguingly, in the treatment of Süleyman’s nose, our painting differs from the Uffizi version and comes closer to the Ambras version. Yet it is not derived from the Ambras portrait, as it lacks the meretricious addition of the ruffled edge of Süleyman’s chemise. It must, then, be independently connected to Giovio's painting, though when and how remains to be established. Unusually, the present version is painted on copper. This lends it great vibrancy, but, in an Italian context, suggests a date in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.

The present painting opens a window onto a narrative of artistic exchanges between Venice and the Ottomans in the 1530s. The story involves the crown that Süleyman purchased from Venetian craftsmen, which combined Papal tiara and military helmet in a symbolism referencing both the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. The crown looks phantasmagorical in depictions, but it was real, as is the likeness of Süleyman. The threads of the story extend to the presence in Istanbul of a Venetian painter about whom, unlike Gentile Bellini, we know little; to the family tradition that Giovio received a portrait of Süleyman directly from the Sultan himself; to portraits owned by Giovio of several of Süleyman’s military commanders, notably the admirals Hayreddin 'Barbarossa' Pasha and Sinan Pasha; and to the role of another captain, Haydar Reis, known as Nigari ('The Painter'), in linking the Ottoman and European traditions of Ottoman imperial portraiture. The present portrait is a rare addition to this corpus of important works.

We are grateful to Julian Raby for this catalogue entry, which has been adapted from a more fully illustrated article in Cornucopia magazine, Issue 62, 2021, which can be found here: https://delta.exacteditions.com/room/cornucopia/issue?Expires=1617830422&KeyId=eki_X4J0CwMc87L-t7QL2xLvTA&Signature=95db146b4ac8e1828a8fdd6e8db98027b67cce80
We are very grateful to Cornucopia. www.cornucopia.net

Fig.1. The newly restored Uffizi portrait, 1552-68, attributed to Cristofano Dell' Altissimo, oil on panel, 58 by 45cm. Galleria Degli Uffizi, Florence.

Fig.2. Archduke Ferdinand II’s smaller portrait, 1578-99, oil on paper pasted on panel, 13.6 by 10.7cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.