Description

Original bdg. HC. In publisher's special box. Folio. (38 x 28 cm). In English and Turkish. A 19th century album of Ottoman Sultans' portraits. Suna and Inan Kiraç Collection.= Osmanli Padisah portreleri. Bir 19. yüzyil albümü. Inan ve Suna Kiraç Koleksiyonu. In the mind of every Turk, there is a set image for Ottoman Sultans that he has acquired from a variety of sources: school books, historical texts, encyclopaedias, etc. The Ottoman royal image is not altogether unknown to the Europeans either. This is due to the fact that there is a pictorial record of the Ottoman Sultans created by the numerous portraits produced through the centuries by Turkish and European artists. It was a great pleasure for me to write the explanatory text to this special album of sultan portraits in Inan and Suna Kirac collection. The absence of an original text in the album itself complicated the study of the portraits in view of their iconography, especially the richly detailed backgrounds and attributes used for each sultan. This necessitated a thorough study of historical sources and a search for comparative albums. Nevertheless 17 similar albums dating from approximately the same period were recorded and listed after the text. The main question was to explore into the realm of the Ottoman artist to discover his approach to portraiture. In Islam, to read a person's character through the study of his physiognomy has been a science. With this in mind, did the Ottoman artist confine himself only to the preset details of each sultan's physiognomy or did he enrich his knowledge about the sultans through other sources? I strongly believe that the artist of the Kirac album did this. Therefore, in the short texts accompanying each portrait, I chose to give a brief record of the sultan's deeds, interests and personality as revealed in historical sources. In this way, it would be easier to comprehend the artist's interpretation. In the main text, I tried to give a comprehensive summary of the history of royal portraiture among the Ottomans and presented the prototypes to this album. Then came a discussion of the Kirac album itself not only in view of its artistic value but also as a significant source of information about imperial attire and certainly the artistic milieu of the Ottoman Empire in the first decades of the 19th century.