Long-lost portrait medallion of Ottoman ruler expected to sell for £2m
A medallion believed to feature the earliest western portrait of an Islamic ruler is expected to fetch up to £2 million when it is sold in London in May.
The small bronze object depicts Mehmed II, who is widely regarded as among the greatest Ottoman sultans. He oversaw a 15th-century empire stretching from Europe to Egypt and parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
The ruler, who masterminded the capture of Constantinople in 1453, commissioned artists to recreate his image in portraits and sculptures, and did so “far more than any of his peers in Europe”, according to Bonhams, the art auctioneer handling the sale.
The medallion was only rediscovered 20 years ago, when it was included in a sale of Italian Renaissance medals. It had disappeared from records after the end of Mehmed II’s rule with his death in 1481.
“This major rediscovery can be placed in a period of Mehmed’s life when almost no direct material evidence of its kind has survived,” said Oliver White, Bonhams’ head of Islamic and Indian art.
“It is the only known medallion of Mehmed II showing him as a young man, before he conquered Constantinople in 1453, a feat thought impossible.
“The medallion is thought to have been worn by the Sultan as a personal talisman, providing a physical manifestation of his imperial aspirations as the successor to the emperors of Rome.”
Such medallions, which were produced in an Italian studio from the late 1430s, provided nobility with both a form of self-promotion and a sense of identity, said Bonhams.
The style of the medallion is in keeping with others of its type produced at the time.
After the capture of Constantinople, Mehmed II claimed the title Caesar of the Roman Empire and commissioned various portraits of himself, including an oil painting by Gentile Bellini, which is now in the National Gallery in London.
“That Bellini portrait shows an elderly Mehmed, providing a moment of a sober reflection on a dramatic life, over which the shadow of Constantine the Great and his capital Constantinople loomed,” said Bonhams.
“Thirty years earlier … another western artist, yet to be identified, had already codified in cast-bronze relief Mehmed’s embryonic vision of himself as the last Roman emperor.”