Page 74 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

base to the great tent erected for him, a distance piece appears in an accurate drawing attributed N O T E S
of at least a hundred meters, was spread with to Muhammad Khayyam in an album of fif- 1. Halil Inalcik, "The Policy of Mehmed n Towards
silk carpets. 52 teenth-century graphic material from Herat and the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine
In Venice too, the Signoria had a collection Tabriz, which was presented to Johann Gottfried Buildings of the City/' in Dumbarton Oaks Papers
231.
23-24 (1969-1970),
of Cairene and other carpets (Marino Sanuto von Diez, the Prussian ambassador at the Sub- 2. Julian Raby, "Cyriacus of Ancona and the Ottoman
[1466-1535] more than once describes them as lime Porte in the i/jos. 58 The absence of model- Sultan Mehmed n," in Journal of the Warburg &
caiarini et cimiscasachi, the latter evidently ing gives the drawing a misleadingly Courtauld Institutes 42 (1980).
53
from (Jemi§gezek on the Upper Euphrates ) for neoclassical appearance, but Muhammad b. 3. Julian Raby, "East & West in Mehmed the Con-
state occasions: they appear in pictures of pro- Mahmudshah (al-)Khayyam is known from queror's Library/' in Bulletin du Bibliophile 3 (1987).
cessions in the Piazza San Marco, thrown over signed drawings in Berlin and Istanbul that are 4. Julian Raby, "Mehmed n Fatih and the Fatih from
China and Iran. Paintings
Album/' in Between
the balconies of the Ducal Palace and the Pro- attributable on the basis of their style to Tabriz Four Istanbul Albums, ed. Ernst J. Grube and Elea-
curatorie Vecchie. Cairene and Turkish carpets c. 1460, and stylistically the Tazza Farnese nor Sims (Percival David Foundation, London,
were also, though briefly, woven in northern drawing fits with these very well. The Tazza 1985); Julian Raby, "Pride and Prejudice: Mehmed
Italy. A letter from Barbara of Brandenburg Farnese must thus have come from Tabriz: how the Conqueror and the Italian Portrait Medal," in
dated 1464 asks for a Turkish slave to weave and when it reached that city is unknown, but Studies in the History of Art, ed. Graham Pollard
no. 21.
1987),
(National Gallery of Art, Washington,
carpets for her at Mantua, and Rodolfo Signori- the drawing of it shows that if it was a chance 5. Franz Babinger, Reliquienschacher am Osmanenhof
ni's recent publication of the Camera Dipinta in acquisition it was a highly esteemed curiosity. im XV. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1956).
the Ducal Palace there suggests that the carpet Classical cameos, improbably perhaps, are 6. The pictures appear to be mentioned in a partial
Mantegna painted was the work of this slave. nevertheless not difficult to fit into an Aqqoy- Treasury inventory, dated 1505, of objects that were
From 1490 onward, there was a carpet workshop unlu context. A developed taste among Tamer- evidently to be donated to, endowed upon, or dis-
at the ducal court at Ferrara, run by a Muslim lane's successors for vessels in eastern Asiatic posed of for the mosque of Bayazid in Istanbul,
which was inaugurated in that year. J. Michael
54
from Cairo, Sabadino Moro. Though the jade brought with it a fashion for objects in Rogers, "An Ottoman Palace Inventory of the Reign
Ferrara workshop remained active until c. 1530, agate, onyx, and chalcedony, all of which mate- of Bayazid n," in CIEPO, VI e Symposium, Cam-
these initiatives did not lead to the establish- rials were readily procurable from the Deccan bridge, ist~4th July, 1984, ed. Jean-Louis Bacque-
ment of any permanent carpet manufacture in and are listed in late fifteenth- and early six- Grammont and Emeri van Donzel (Istanbul, Paris,
often
Renaissance Italy. teenth-century Ottoman Palace inventories: of Leyden, 1987). Angiolello's report, which has very
been dismissed as ill-informed gossip, is thus
Many of the objects in the Treasury of the these an agate cup survives, dated 1470-1471, probably true.
Cathedral of San Marco in Venice were also made for the Timurid Sultan Husayn Bayqara, 7. Uriel Heyd, "Moses Hamon, Chief Jewish Physician
59
believed to have come from the East. Such was ruler of Herat. The jades subsequently traveled to Sultan Siileyman the Magnificent/' in Oriens 16
definitely the case with some of the rock- westward, as well as toward India, where their (1963). 2
crystals from the Fatimid Treasury (cat. 13) Timurid associations made them prized by the 8. "Djem," Encyclopaedia of Islam , 6 vols. (Leyden,
1960-1990), vol. 2.
60
which reached Venice via Acre or Jerusalem in Mogul emperors. A cup bearing the name of 9. Babinger 1956.
the mid-thirteenth century. These were, evi- Tamerlane's grandson, Ulugh Beg, has a silver 10. Hanna Sohrweide, "Dichter und Gelehrter aus dem
dently, diverted booty from the sack of Con- plug at the rim with an Ottoman Turkish Osten im Osmanischen Reich," in Der Islam 46
stantinople in 1204 —though this was not inscription indicating that at some time, very (1970).
55
demonstrated until the nineteenth century. It probably in 1514 (a partial inventory of booty 11. Osman F. Sertkaya, "Some New Documents Written
was not the actual provenance but the Venetian from Tabriz in the Topkapi Saray archives, D. in the Uigur Script in Anatolia," in Central Asiatic
Journal
Eleazar Birnbaum, "The Otto-
18 (1974);
belief that objects coming from the East thereby 10734, lists jade vessels, without however mans and Chagatay Literature. An Early i6th Cen-
gained glamor that is so striking, and this describing them in detail), it came into the tury Manuscript of Nava'i's Divan in Ottoman
56
remains as strong as ever. One of the more Ottoman Treasury: if, as suggested here, Orthography," in Central Asiatic Journal 20 (1976).
remarkable cases is a bowl of heavy opaque glass it came from Tabriz it may well have been in 12. Filiz gagman, "On the Contents of the Four Istanbul
Between
2160," in
of Fatimid type in the Treasury of San Marco, Uzun Hasan's Treasury as well. And a dark Albums, H. 2152, 2153, 2154 and Four Istanbul
China and Iran. Paintings from
with molded lobes and panels of stylized hares green jade pot inlaid in gold with scrollwork and Albums, ed. Ernst J. Grube and Eleanor Sims (Per-
c
datable to c. 1000 AD, which is almost certainly the name of the Safavid Shah Isma il, now in cival David Foundation, London, 1985); Zeren
61
also from the Fatimid Treasury. This has long the Treasury of the Topkapi Saray and clearly Tanindi, "Some Problems of Two Istanbul Albums,
been believed to be a gift to San Marco from the booty from Tabriz as well, is so similar in pro- H. 2153 and 2160," in Between China and Iran.
Aqqoyunlu ruler, Uzun Hasan, in Tabriz, even file to a white jade jug bearing the name of Paintings from Four Istanbul Albums, ed. Ernst J.
Grube and Eleanor Sims (Percival David Foundation,
62
though that is ruled out by the mounts, which Ulugh Beg that it too must also have been of London, 1985).
c
include Byzantine cloisonne enamels and north- Timurid origin, appropriated by Shah Isma il 13. Raby 1985 suggests that they may have reached
ern Italian medieval filigree plaques of far too and elaborated to his own taste when he seized Istanbul with the Florentine Benedetto Dei, but they
early a date to be connected with that ruler. 57 the throne in 1501. The histories of these pieces could equally well have been brought from Tabriz.
Though the Venetians were not to know it, and the list of treasuries through which they 14. Ismail Hakki Uzuncar§ih, "Osmanli saray' inda ehl-i
however, Uzun Hasan, or one of his immediate passed are thus remarkably similar to the his- hiref 'sanatkarlar' defterleri," in Belgeler 11 (Ankara,
1986), 26-32.
predecessors, must have owned Western hard- tory of the Tazza Farnese, and to those of many 15. Banu Mahir, "Saray nakka§hanesinin iinlii ressami
stones, notably the famous classical sardonyx of the Antique hardstones in the great Italian §ah Kulu ve eserleri," in Topkapi Sarayi Muzesi.
cameo made for Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt, Renaissance collections. In that at least, East and Yilhki (Istanbul, 1986).
known as the Tazza Farnese, now in the Museo West were one. 16. Nicola lorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs
(Gotha, 1909), 2:440.
Nazionale in Naples. This was acquired by 17. Uzunc.ars.ili 1986, 29-61.
Lorenzo de' Medici in 1471 from Pope Sixtus iv, 18. Giovanni Antonio Menavino, I costumi, et la vita de'
to whom it had been bequeathed by Paul u. The Turchi (Florence, 1551), 121.
EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 73