- 321
Andrea Soldi
Description
- Andrea Soldi
- Portrait of a Merchant of the Levant Company in Turkish Dress, a view of Aleppo beyond
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Possibly sold, his sale, Cairo, Sotheby's, February 1954, where possibly acquired by the mother of the present owner
Condition
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
This important and hitherto unrecorded painting belongs to a distinct body of work by the Florentine artist Andrea Soldi painted between 1733 and 1735 in Syria and the Levant, prior to his arrival in England in circa 1736. The best known example of this group is arguably the Portrait of Henry Lannoy Hunter (Tate Britian, London). This small group of portraits of merchants of the Levant Company, principally young British men characterised by their adoption of local Turkish costume, all demonstrate the distinctive characteristics of the artist's early style. Oval faces, dimpled chins, round tipped noses, long slender fingers and a casual, yet witty air, along with the almost inevitable inclusion of a Turkish rug, all mark out Soldi's work from this period. Here he depicts his sitter dressed in a fur lined Kurk over red harem pants reclining in the open by a small stream, pointing towards the city which is his place of business. His leather boots suggest that he has recently returned from hunting, his slippers waiting beside him. He is a man of wealth and status, and both his poise and attire make this apparent.
The British Levant Company was founded by Royal Charter in 1581 as an institutional joint-stock company responsible for the management of trade between London and the Eastern Mediterranean. With its main centre in Aleppo, the company had factories across the Levant, including Constantinople and Smyrna, where the merchants lived in Khans run by the principal consul in London, which consisted of both warehouses and living quarters. In the East budding young merchants worked for a number of years on a commission basis managing the sales of English tin, lead and broadcloth, which they exchanged for wine, cotton wool, mohair, spices, carpets, coffee, and above all silk. After successful completion of their tenure in the Levant, and on the assumption that he had managed to retain his commercial reputation on the ground, the successful merchant would return to London to take up a prestigious role within his Company. It was an established convention among the gentlemen of the Levant Company that a successful merchant had his portrait painted immediately before returning home. What is most significant about the present painting is that, off all the known portraits Soldi painted in the Levant, this is the only know one to specifically make reference to Aleppo, in the form of a distant view of the city, to which the sitter points.
As Sarah Moulden has observed, a peculiarity of the Levant Company was that, unlike other mercantile enterprises, its success was largely based on its favourable public image. The merchant's presentation, and his style of dress, was as much a business strategy as it was a statement of social intent. The adoption of local Turkish dress enabled the merchant to assimilate with the community in which he sought to live and do business. As one merchant at Aleppo, Edmond Sherman, commented to his wife in a letter of 1696 'I put myselfe in the same 'Turkish' fashion, all in crimson colour cloth suitable to French and Dutch nations in the same office at Scanderoon and we all were lardge whiskers on our upper lipp as the Turks weare, I believe you would hardly know me'1. In having themselves painted in such attire in portraiture, and therefore preserving for posterity their identity as 'Turkey merchants', these men recognised their Eastern experience as an important part of their identities. When not doing business with the local Armenian and Jewish merchants the Europeans lived a rich and opulent lifestyle in the East. Hunting, entertaining and holding concerts and occasionally even masquerades, they lived in the manner of gentlemen of means. As Sir James Porter, the ambassador to Constantinople from 1746 to 1762, observed the Turkey merchants of the early eighteenth century were the 'most opulent and respectable body of men in the city'2.
We are grateful to John Ingamells for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of photographs, and to Sarah Moulden for equally confirming the attribution following first hand inspection, and for her assistance with the cataloguing.
1. S. Moulden, 'Turning Turk': The negotiable self in Andrea Soldi's Levantine Portraits, c.1730-36, unpublished MA Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2007, pp. 20-21
2. ibid., p. 18