- Title
- Members of Court of Selim II as Crown Prince
- Date Made
- circa 1561-62
- Period
- Ottoman (1281-1924)
- Medium
- Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
- Dimensions
- 17 9/16 × 12 3/16 in. (44.6 × 31 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.85.237.20
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
From the late sixteenth century to the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1922, the Ottoman sultans maintained a strong tradition of imperial portraiture. Influenced by European oil painting and Persian manuscript illustration, Ottoman portraits provide important information about royal ceremonies, changing fashions, and members of the court. The right side of a double-page composition, this painting was created as a pendant to a portrait of Selim II (r. 1566−74) on the left, now in the collection of the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. The musicians, servants, and courtiers—who are identified by inscriptions beside their heads—face left, toward the sultan, in a show of deference to their ruler. The singular figure in a blue robe at left is an unnamed pasha, a high-ranking Ottoman official. The figure at the upper far right clad in yellow in the guise of a jester is probably a self-portrait of the artist, Haydar Reis, known as Nigari, “the portraitist.” Nigari also had been a renowned admiral in charge of the Ottoman imperial shipyards and was a close companion to the sultan. His signature in the cartouche at upper left reads: “Nigari servant of Sultan Selim Khan.”
- Selected Bibliography
- Denny, Walter B. Turkish Treasures from the Collection of Edward Binney, 3rd. Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1979.
- Kangal, Selmin, ed. The Sultan's Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman. Istanbul: TÜrkiye Is Bankasi, 2000.
- Fetvaci, Emine. Picturing History at the Ottoman Court. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
- Overton, Keelan. "A History of Ottoman Art History Through the Private Database of Edward Binney, 3rd." Journal of Art Historiography 6 (2012): 1-19.
Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.
Pal, Pratapaditya, Thomas W. Lentz, Sheila R. Canby, Edwin Binney, 3rd, Walter B. Denny, and Stephen Markel. "Arts from Islamic Cultures: Los Angeles County Museum of Art." Arts of Asia 17, no. 6 (November/December 1987): 73-130.
- Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.
- Binney, Edwin, 3rd. "Turkish Arts of the Book in the Binney Collection." Arts of Asia 17, no.6 (Nov/Dec 1987): 97-104.
- Komaroff, Linda, editor. Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books, 2023.
