Portrait of Sultan Ahmed III (1673–1736), three-quarter-length, standing, with a view onto the Bosphorus and the Hagia Sophia

This rare portrait depicts Ahmed III, ruling Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, in front of the Hagia Sophia, Constantinople’s great landmark, which had been recently renovated under Ahmed’s patronage. In its fusion of European painting techniques and Ottoman subject matter and dress, it is an important record of the cross-currents of Ottoman and Western culture under the sitter’s enlightened rule.

SULTAN AHMED III (REIGN 1703-1720)

Sultan Ahmed III acceded to the throne after his brother Sultan Mustafa II’s death in 1703 and reigned for twenty-seven years until the revolt of Patrona Halil. Ahmed III looked westwards for inspiration during his rule and cultivated good relations with England and France, affording refuge at his court to Charles XII of Sweden after his defeat by Peter I the Great of Russia at the Battle of Poltava (1709). Following an unsuccessful war with the Venetian and Habsburg Empires, the second half of his reign was a relatively peaceful period, during which the Ottoman Empire began to orient itself towards Europe, which became known as the Tulip Era (1718-1730).

Ahmed III is described by contemporaries as a tall man with dark brown hair and a falcon nose. He had been well educated and was considered intelligent and gentile, traits that are discernible in his portrait. With Ahmed’s encouragement, art and literature flourished during the Tulip Era. Some Ottomans began to dress like Europeans, under the influence of Ahmed’s son-in-law the grand vizier İbrahim Paşa and the palace began to imitate European court life and pleasures.

Ahmed III built several lavish summer residences on the Bosporus and the Golden Horn (an inlet that forms part of the harbour of Istanbul), and members of his immediate entourage built similarly extravagant houses, holding frequent garden parties in imitation of the pleasures of Versailles in France. In the present portrait Ahmed III is depicted in a European-style palazzo looking across the Bosporus towards the Hagia Sophia, and it is possible it was painted from one of these newly-built summer residences, inspired by their Western counterparts.

Ahmed III was a significant patron across many fields, and made noteworthy additions and alterations to the most important landmarks of Constantinople. For the Topkapi Palace he commissioned the Enderûn Library, known as the Library of Sultan Ahmed III, which was built by royal architect Mimar Beşir Ağa in 1719 for use by officials of the royal household (fig. 1). As had become traditional, he built his own Privy Chamber within the Palace complex, with walls adorned with panels of floral designs and fruit compositions painted in the Edirnekâri technique (fig. 2). In 1728, he had a magnificent fountain, known as the Fountain of Ahmed III, built in the Turkish rococo style in the great square in front of the Imperial Gate of Topkapi Palace.

He also made major renovations to the Hagia Sophia; built in 537 AD as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople, it was converted into a mosque after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 (fig. 3). The renovations made during Ahmed III’s reign may indicate as to why it, rather than the Topkapi Palace, main residence and administrative headquarters of the Ottoman sultans, was chosen as the backdrop in this portrait. It is possible that the dome of the Hagia Irene, which was converted into the National Military Museum in 1726, can be seen to the right of the Hagia Sophia.

PORTRAITURE IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Although there had been a tradition of painting portraits of the Ottoman sultans in the miniature technique since the sixteenth century, the European tradition of having portraits painted in oil was not popularised until the second half of the eighteenth century in the Ottoman Empire. The limited number of surviving contemporary portraits of Ahmed III is testament to this.

Of the known portraits of Ahmed III, the present depiction is closest in style to those painted by Flemish artist Jean-Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1737), who came to Constantinople in the entourage of the French ambassador, Marquis de Ferriol, in 1699, and worked there until his death in 1737. Introduced into European diplomatic circles and a favourite of the Turkish Court, Vanmour was able to record the numerous festivities and official receptions given by the Grand Seigneur as well as scenes of everyday life. Named ‘peintre ordinaire du Roi en Levant’ in 1725 (a title invented for him), he portrayed Sultan Ahmad III on multiple occasions. The majority of these paintings depict processions or important events in the daily life of the Ottoman Empire.

Painting audiences with the Sultan became Vanmour’s speciality; he only had to change the setting and a few faces. Many of these pictures, collected by the Dutch Ambassador Cornelius Calkoen, are now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A series of one hundred engravings were created after Vanmour’s portraits, which was published by Le Hay in 1714, titled as Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes nations du Levant. The book had a great influence in Western Europe and was published in at least five languages; its wide distribution and popular reception led to an increased recognition of Vanmour as a respected artist.

The accomplished sense of linear perspective and the subtle chiaroscuro of the drapery in the present portrait points to an artist who trained in the schools of Western Europe and travelled to Constantinople, mirroring the movements of Vanmour. Recent scholarship (E. Nicolaas, D. Bull, G. Renda and G. Irepoğlu, Jean Baptiste Vanmour, An Eyewitness to the Tulip Era, Istanbul, 2003) has suggested there were a number of itinerant artists working alongside Vanmour documenting the inner political life of the Ottoman capital who have yet to be identified.

INFLUENCE OF EUROPE ON THE OTTOMAN COURT

The portrait should be seen in light of the cross-currents between Ottoman and Western culture under Ahmed III. The retreat of the Ottoman armies from central Europe following the Battle of Vienna in 1683 had marked a turning point in East-West relations in which old fears were widely replaced by curiosity. In Ahmed III’s reign, despite fighting wars against Austria and Venice, there was an increased interest in what life was like in the Ottoman Empire in Western Europe and vice versa. In France the arrival of the Ottoman Ambassador Mehmed Çelebi in 1721 created a sensation and peak interest in and emulation of Ottoman culture, a phenomenon which became known as Turquerie.

The influence of European court portraiture, such as Titian’s grand portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere (Uffizi, Florence), is evident in the format, scale and broken brushwork painting technique of our portrait. Ahmed III wears a fur-lined kaftan and a turban called kâtibî. This type of turban was draped around a flat headdress and decorated with a fan-shaped ornament. The sultan’s belt is also richly set with jewels, as is the ceremonial staff that he holds in his right hand. The outfit he wears is almost identical to what he wore in Vanmour’s portrait of him, circa 1727-30 (fig. 4, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).