SULTAN SÜLEYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

This well executed painting is a mid-twentieth century copy of a portrait of Sultan Süleyman I (1494-1566) commissioned by Paolo Giovio in Italy in the 16th Century.  Giovio, a physician, historian and prelate, commissioned a series of 484 portraits of the famous, including rulers, literary figures, popes, artists and a few renowned women.  The Giovio Series was housed in a specially built museum in Lake Como which Giovio designed in 1537. The original collection has not survived though a set of copies made for Cosimo I de Medici now resides in the Uffizi Gallery.  The fate of the original portrait of Süleyman, allegedly from Titian’s workshop, is unknown but at least two sixteenth century copies are known, one in the Uffizi and the other in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Archduke Ferdinand II.

Giovio was scrupulous about the portraits, insisting that wherever possible they be done from life, and Süleyman was an extraordinary character, in looks he was described as the following by a Venetian delegation sent to meet him in Istanbul:

“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,”

The portrait shows him at the age of 43, already an incredibly successful and astute ruler, his empire extended over Southern Europe and North Africa ruling over 25 million people.  He was also very interested in the arts, writing poetry himself, and commissioning many beautiful buildings.

As the portrait was unframed when it came to me I sourced an antique Italian frame for it.

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 29 x 19cm