Lot Essay
Abd-ul-Hamid I (1725-1789) was sultan from 1774 to 1789. Other portraits of him by Jean-Baptiste Hilair and Ferdinando Tornioli are, respectively, in a private collection and at Versailles (see A. Boppe, Les peintres du Bosphore à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1989, pp. 190-1 and 233, both illustrated in colour).
Mehmed Meshoud Bey was the son of Mehmed Efendi, Ottoman Ambassador to Paris (for whom see, for instance, Mehmed Efendi leaving the Palais du Louvre after his meeting with King Louis XIV in 1721, by Pierre-Denin Martin, in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (see the catalogue of the exhibition Europa und der Orient 800-1900, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 28 May-27 Aug. 1989, p. 800, no. 11/5, pl. 882) and The Arrival of Mehmed Efendi to the Tuileries, 21 March 1721, by Charles Parrocel, at Versailles (Boppe, op. cit., p. 135, illustrated in colour). For the identification of the sitter, compare with an engraving of 1742 by Petit (ibid., p. 134, illustrated).
In a letter of 11 September 1988, Professor Günsel Renda, Chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, suggests that the portait of Abd-ul-Hamid may be by the Armenian painter Refail, who executed portraits of the sultans at the time of Abd-ul-Hamid in the Topkapi Palace. Among the non-Muslim and non-Western artists active in the 18th Century in Turkey, Refail seems to have been the most celebrated one: for a comparison with the present pictures, see the Lady with a Bow and Arrow, by Refail, dated 1747 from an album in the Topkapi Palace Museum (see G. Renda in A History of Turkish Painting, Seattle and London, 1988, pp. 66-7, pl. 62 and p. 435, note 29).
Mehmed Meshoud Bey was the son of Mehmed Efendi, Ottoman Ambassador to Paris (for whom see, for instance, Mehmed Efendi leaving the Palais du Louvre after his meeting with King Louis XIV in 1721, by Pierre-Denin Martin, in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (see the catalogue of the exhibition Europa und der Orient 800-1900, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 28 May-27 Aug. 1989, p. 800, no. 11/5, pl. 882) and The Arrival of Mehmed Efendi to the Tuileries, 21 March 1721, by Charles Parrocel, at Versailles (Boppe, op. cit., p. 135, illustrated in colour). For the identification of the sitter, compare with an engraving of 1742 by Petit (ibid., p. 134, illustrated).
In a letter of 11 September 1988, Professor Günsel Renda, Chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, suggests that the portait of Abd-ul-Hamid may be by the Armenian painter Refail, who executed portraits of the sultans at the time of Abd-ul-Hamid in the Topkapi Palace. Among the non-Muslim and non-Western artists active in the 18th Century in Turkey, Refail seems to have been the most celebrated one: for a comparison with the present pictures, see the Lady with a Bow and Arrow, by Refail, dated 1747 from an album in the Topkapi Palace Museum (see G. Renda in A History of Turkish Painting, Seattle and London, 1988, pp. 66-7, pl. 62 and p. 435, note 29).