British auction house Christie’s will put 16th-century portraits of six Ottoman sultans up for sale on Oct. 28. The rare works are expected to fetch between 800,000 to 1.2 million pounds ($1.1 million to $1.64 million).
The portraits are of Orhan Ghazi, Bayezid I, Isa Çelebi, Mehmed I, also known as Mehmed Çelebi, Selim I, also known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute and Selim II, also known as Selim the Blond. The works were part of a set produced in Venice in 1579 at the request of Ottoman Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.
Behnaz Atighi Moghaddam, an expert from Christie’s, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the portraits were part of 14 paintings from the 16th century.
The Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds auction will also showcase a message sent to King Louise XIV of France by Mehmet IV, Turkish carpets, Kaaba covers, Iznik tiles, manuscripts and embroidered pots.
Moghaddam said the paintings are “stylistically attributed to Paolo Veronese,” one of the most famous Venetian artists who produced works in the 16th century.
Louise Broadhurst, director and head of the Department of Oriental Rugs and Carpets at Christie's, said the auction will also present three Turkish carpets from the late 16th and 17th centuries.
Broadhurst told AA that the carpets have a Lotto design – a design first depicted by 16th-century Italian painter Lorenzo Lotto – and show the “cross-cultural exchange of art traveling from Turkey through across to the West on the trade routes.”
She added that the carpets were very popular in the 16th century and used to decorate tables in wealthy Italian palaces.
