Page 213 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

io8 Karabacek long ago pointed out, his costume, in 109

After Costanzo da Ferrara particular his striped kaftan, suggests a character Albrecht Diirer
of more modest origins and means. When A. Ven-
STANDING OTTOMAN turi first published this series of drawings in 1898, Nuremberg, 1471-1528
he attributed them to Pintoricchio. An objection AN ORIENTAL RULER SEATED
c. 1470-1480 was soon raised, first by Frizzoni, and then by
North Italian Ricci, that the figures had a physicality and pres- ON His THRONE
brush and brown ink ence which distinguished them from Pintoric- c. 1495-1496
7
30.1 x 20.4 (ii /s x 8) chio's more winsome types. They were evident pen and black ink
references: British Museum 1950, 1:5, 6, nos. 7, 8; 2 3
Babinger 1951, 349-388 borrowings, and Frizzoni pointed out that whereas 30.6 X 19.7 (l2 /S X 7 /4J
Pintoricchio was of Umbrian origin, the Seated references: Romer 1917, 219-224; Dodgson 1922,
Musee du Louvre, Paris, Departement des Arts Lady in the British Museum bears a color nota- 17-18; Winkler 1932, 68-89; Tietze and Tietze-
Graphiques tion in Venetian dialect — arzento in place of Conrat 1935, 213-223; Winkler, 1936-1939, 1:57-
argento (silver). Only the two drawings in the 58, no. 77; Tietze and Tietze-Conrat 1937-1938,
This beturbanned Ottoman figure, wearing a calf- British Museum are generally accepted as origin- 2:143; no. wya; White 1973, 365-374; Strauss
Strika 1978, fasc.
1974,
no. i495/i8-i8a;
2; Berlin
length kaftan and the long outer robe known as a als, the others being regarded as later derivatives 1989, 236, pi. 280
dolaman, stands in a frontal posture, exuding (British Museum 1950, 1:5, 6, nos. 7, 8). Never-
confidence. Here is a fifteenth-century European theless, as a group, they reflect a common source. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon
depiction of an oriental that is dispassionately The Ottoman character of the series and the Bruce Fund
objective, untramelled by the legacy of classical notation in Venetian on the London sheet seemed
scholarship or Christian propaganda. The sheet to most scholars to point to Gentile Bellini, who The identity of this enthroned ruler has occa-
belongs to a series of seven such drawings, two of visited Istanbul between 1479 and 1481, as the sioned some controversy. In the early nineteenth
which are in the British Museum, three in the author. This Louvre drawing even bears an century the subject was thought to be Charle-
Louvre, and two in the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut inscription attributing it to Gentile's brother magne, but since the i86os scholarship has
in Frankfurt. Three of the seven were used by Giovanni Bellini, but it is in a later, eighteenth- increasingly favored an oriental, and more spe-
Pintoricchio in frescoes he painted in the 14905 century hand. Another argument in favor of cifically an Ottoman, ruler. The figure lacks the
and early 15005. Only this standing figure appears Gentile was that in his final will of 1507 he Christian symbols one would expect in an image
twice, however, once in the Disputation of St. bequeathed to his apprentices omnia mea designia of a Western ruler; the orb, for example, is not
Catherine in the Borgia Apartments in Rome, and retracta de Roma, which was taken to mean "all equipped with a cross. As a "Sultan of Turkey,"
once in a fresco in the Piccolomini Library in my drawings brought back from Rome" — a clear however, the figure belongs firmly in the realm
Siena. He occupies a prominent position in both, reference, it was thought, to the drawings which of fiction. He wears a composite headgear — half-
and there have been attempts to identify him as Pintoricchio had used in Rome. The case is not, turban, half-crown—while his bejeweled chain
"Calixtus Ottomanus," the fugitive half-brother however, so clear-cut. The meaning of retracta de and pendant, two-handed sword, robes, and
of Sultan Mehmed n (Babinger 1951, 349-388). Roma is ambiguous and could refer to views of footwear, as well as his throne, all derive from
There is no basis for this claim, however, and, as the city. More important, the general style of the a European rather than an Ottoman context.
drawings bears little relation to Gentile's docu- The drawing can be dated on stylistic grounds
mented work. They are closely related, on the to Diirer's first trip to Venice in 1494-1495
other hand, to a gouache drawing of a Seated (White 1973, 365). The figure, together with its
Scribe in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in shading, was traced through on the verso of the
Boston that bears a sixteenth-century Ottoman sheet, probably by Diirer himself, and served as
inscription in Persian. Attempts have been made the model for an unfinished engraving by Diirer
to wrest Bellini's name from this inscription, but of the same subject, known from a unique trial
it can be shown that it refers instead to another impression (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), which
European artist who visited Istanbul, Costanzo da he appears to have begun shortly after his return
Ferrara, the artist of the splendid portrait medal from Venice. Despite the Western embroidery,
of Mehmed the Conqueror (cat. 107). The seven details of the drawing are reflected in several
drawings are more reasonably attributed to Cos- Ottoman figures that appear in Diirer's graphic
tanzo than to Gentile. work shortly after his Venetian trip. The emperor
Although, as his name suggests, Costanzo lived Domitian, in the Martyrdom of Saint John from
for a time in Ferrara, he was in fact of Venetian the woodcut Apocalypse of 1496-1498, wears a
origin, and doubtless would have written color comparable chain, and his pendant, like that of the
notations in his native dialect. Costanzo was said oriental ruler, has two flanking birds. The stand-
by a contemporary Neapolitan critic, Summonte, ing attendant to the left of Domitian bears a facial
to have been a draughtsman of consummate skill, resemblance to the "Sultan of Turkey" and holds
and this group of oriental drawings shows that a similar sword. Both Domitian and the standing
this was praise well deserved. J.R. attendant, however, wear credible Ottoman tur-
bans. As the drawing of the Three Orientals in the
British Museum (cat. no) proves, Diirer had
access to accurate depictions of Ottomans through
Gentile Bellini, who had been in Istanbul some
fifteen years earlier.
Although the comparison with Diirer's Three
Orientals makes it plain that this is not a realistic

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