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Lot Essay
As the ‘Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction’, the patronage of Mehmed II (r.1444-46, then 1451-81) reflected his cosmopolitan interests. As well as engaging in complicated diplomatic manoeuvres with the city-states of Renaissance Italy, he cultivated a profound interest in the cultural and intellectual developments of the Quattrocento. It was he, for example, who first realised Alberti and Filarete’s design for a star-shaped fort which came to define European defensive architecture for the next two centuries (J. Raby, Pride and Prejudice: Mehmed the Conqueror and the Italian Portrait Medal, Washington DC, 1987, p.171). He also shared with the princes of Renaissance Italy a love of portraiture: the library of the Topkapi Palace even preserves a number of sketches done by him as a youth, including many portrait busts. As a ruler, he enthusiastically followed his contemporaries on the Italian peninsular in adopting oil painting and the portrait medal as a means of promulgating his image.
Though five different portrait medals are known to feature Mehmed II, Constanzo da Ferrara’s is not only the best of the group, but has been described as one of ‘the finest portrait medals of the Renaissance’ (J. Raby, op. cit., p.176). Little is known about the artist, a Venetian who worked at the court of King Ferrante of Naples (r.1458-94) and was sent to Istanbul in response to Mehmed II’s request for an Italian portraitist. The characterful bust of Mehmed on the obverse, with its carefully-observed kaftan and turban, is likely to have been carved from life. The reverse shows Mehmed mounted on a horse in front of a landscape reminiscent of those in Italian Renaissance portraits. The fortress visible in the background may be Scutari, which Mehmed captured from Venice in 1479. The inscriptions describe him as the Emperor of Asia and Greece, and of both the Ottoman and Byzantine realms. Though heavily based on Italian aesthetic vocabulary, Gülru Neçipoğlu points out that Rum Seljuq coins had also featured equestrian portraits of rulers, and that Alaüddin Keykubad had even been depicted in a toga (G. Neçipoğlu, Visual Cosmpolitanism and Creative Translation, Leyden, 2012, p.30). Rather than importing an alien tradition, through his patronage of portrait medals Mehmed II aimed to remind the rulers of Europe that they both traced their heritage back to a shared classical past.
This is an early aftercast of Constanzo da Ferrara's original medallion, likely dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Another aftercast, possibly done at the same time, is in the Robert Lehman colelction, now in the Metropolian Museum of Art in New York (1975.1.1269). An earlier uniface portrait medal of Mehmed II sold at Baldwin’s, Anon. sale, 25 April 2012, lot 129. This example was previously in the collection of Charles Dupriez (1871-1952), a coin collector and dealer active in Brussels in the first years of the twentieth century, who edited the journal 'La Gazette Numsimatique' from 1895 to 1913.
Though five different portrait medals are known to feature Mehmed II, Constanzo da Ferrara’s is not only the best of the group, but has been described as one of ‘the finest portrait medals of the Renaissance’ (J. Raby, op. cit., p.176). Little is known about the artist, a Venetian who worked at the court of King Ferrante of Naples (r.1458-94) and was sent to Istanbul in response to Mehmed II’s request for an Italian portraitist. The characterful bust of Mehmed on the obverse, with its carefully-observed kaftan and turban, is likely to have been carved from life. The reverse shows Mehmed mounted on a horse in front of a landscape reminiscent of those in Italian Renaissance portraits. The fortress visible in the background may be Scutari, which Mehmed captured from Venice in 1479. The inscriptions describe him as the Emperor of Asia and Greece, and of both the Ottoman and Byzantine realms. Though heavily based on Italian aesthetic vocabulary, Gülru Neçipoğlu points out that Rum Seljuq coins had also featured equestrian portraits of rulers, and that Alaüddin Keykubad had even been depicted in a toga (G. Neçipoğlu, Visual Cosmpolitanism and Creative Translation, Leyden, 2012, p.30). Rather than importing an alien tradition, through his patronage of portrait medals Mehmed II aimed to remind the rulers of Europe that they both traced their heritage back to a shared classical past.
This is an early aftercast of Constanzo da Ferrara's original medallion, likely dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Another aftercast, possibly done at the same time, is in the Robert Lehman colelction, now in the Metropolian Museum of Art in New York (1975.1.1269). An earlier uniface portrait medal of Mehmed II sold at Baldwin’s, Anon. sale, 25 April 2012, lot 129. This example was previously in the collection of Charles Dupriez (1871-1952), a coin collector and dealer active in Brussels in the first years of the twentieth century, who edited the journal 'La Gazette Numsimatique' from 1895 to 1913.