Page 214 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

110
Albrecht Diirer
Nuremberg, 1471-1528
THREE ORIENTALS

signed with Durer's monogram and dated 1514
by another hand
pen and black and brown ink with watercolor
on paper
30.5 x 19.9 (12 x 7 /s)
4
references: Janitsch 1883, 50-62; Winkler 1936-
1939' 5 ~59> - 7 -79'> Tietze and Tietze-Conrat,
8
i
: 8
no
1937-1935, 1:87-88, no. wy; Washington 1971, no.
69; Strauss 1974, i: no. 1495/12
The Trustees of the British Museum, London
Durer's three orientals are wearing Ottoman
dress, and they have been modeled on a very sim-
ilar trio that appears in the background of Gentile
Bellini's Procession in Saint Mark's Square (Ac-
cademia, Venice), a monumental painting dated
1496. Diirer was in Venice on two occasions, first
in 1494-1495 and later in 1505-January 1507; it
has long been accepted that the style of this draw-
ing is most appropriate to the first of these visits.
He may therefore have seen Gentile's painting as
it was in progress, though it seems more likely
that he had access to Bellini's sketches. The Otto-
depiction of an Ottoman ruler, it has been seen mans are a tiny detail in Bellini's painting, and been replaced with Durer's own features (Wash-
by some as an image of Mehmed the Conqueror. their rendering is summary compared to Durer's ington 1971, no. 69).
The suggestion was first made by the orientalist drawing. Moreover, in a related watercolor by In copying from Bellini, Diirer did not feel
Friedrich Sarre, who also claimed that the throne Diirer in the Albertina, Vienna, an Ottoman rider constrained to retain every detail of the original.
was based on the Near Eastern throne known as carries a mace; he is not a figure who appears in His drawing differs first in that his central figure
the Catedra di San Pietro, which is preserved in Bellini's painting of the Procession, and Diirer wears only a moustache and not a beard as does
the Church of San Pietro in Castello in Venice. presumably copied him from one of the lost stud- the corresponding figure in Bellini's painting;
Yet the face of the seated ruler is no more related ies from Bellini's trip to Istanbul (Winkler 1936- second, and more important, the attendant on
to known portraits of Mehmed the Conqueror, 1939, i, no. 79, compare to nos. 80-81). Salvini's the right has been changed considerably He has
such as Costanzo da Ferrara's medal (cat. 107), thesis which suggested that Diirer drew the been turned into a black servant, and his stance
than the throne is to the Catedra di San Pietro. A Ottomans while they were posing for Gentile in has been altered so that he no longer walks ten-
less literal reading was proposed by the Tietzes: Venice has no merit. Diirer made ample use of tatively forward but stands with his feet firmly
this was not the Mehmed of the cold light of his- these Ottoman types in both his paintings and his
tory, but the conqueror of romantic fantasy. They graphic work over the next decade. In the process planted on the ground, anchoring the composition
on the right.
left
servant's
The pentimento in the
linked the seated ruler to a drawing in Basel of he transformed the representation of orientals in foot allows one to see how Diirer first copied,
a standing lady who is also heavily draped with northern European art, from a stereotype that then modified Bellini's model. J.R.
jewelry. The two drawings, they argued, were might have been excerpted from a mystery play
companion items depicting Mehmed and his ill- into a more substantial creature, with realistic
starred companion, the Greek beauty Irene. details of Ottoman costume.
Mehmed is said to have had her executed in order When Diirer returned to Venice in 1505, Gen-
to disprove the rumor that she had an unhealthy tile Bellini had almost completed a huge canvas
hold over him. The story is a topos of despotism, of Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria (see essay
and was first related of Mehmed by Gian Maria by Julian Raby in this catalogue), which included
Angiolello, a Venetian who was a member of figures of Syrian and Egyptian Mamluks in place
Mehmed's court in the 14705. It passed into of Ottomans. Diirer responded by introducing
Venetian popular fiction when it was included by Mamluks into his own work on his return from
Matteo Bandello (1485-1561) in his Novelle. If Venice. This "Mamluk phase" was relatively
Diirer intended a specific historical allusion in his brief, and Diirer soon reverted to his use of
drawing, however, he did not include sufficient the Ottoman type. Indeed, he continued to rely
detail for us to divine it. T R on the oriental material from his first trip to
Venice —the central Turk in the British Museum
drawing reappears as the lead figure in his etching
of The Cannon, which is dated 1518. The pose and
kaftan are similar, but the head of the Turk has

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 213