A portrait of Roxelana (Haseki Hurrem Sultan, 1506-58), follower of Titian, Italy, Venetian School, 16th century

Known in the West as Roxelana, this painting depicts one of the most famous women of the Ottoman empire. Originally from what is now western Ukraine she was sold at an early age in the slave markets of Constantinople and entered the harem of Sultan Süleyman I ('The Magnificent'). Her Turkish name, Hurrem meant 'the laughing/joyful one' and she soon became the Sultan's favourite, bearing him six children, until he eventually defied convention and married her.

Süleyman revealed his passion for her in poetry: “My most sincere friend, my confidante, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love…The most beautiful among the beautiful…” She enjoyed influence not only over his heart but on his running of the empire. She corresponded with Süleyman when he was away on campaign, keeping him abreast of developments in the capital, and she corresponded with King Sigismund of Poland. She was a major sponsor of architecture and charitable foundations, including in Jerusalem. Most notoriously, though, she promoted her own son at the expense of Süleyman’s oldest, a son by another concubine. Gossip among both the Ottomans and Europeans claimed she had bewitched the Sultan.

This incredible story, and the influence which she wielded within the Ottoman Empire, made Roxelana the subject of many European and Turkish paintings. However over the years images of her have been confused with figures as disparate as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Caterina Cornaro Queen of Cyprus, and even her own daughter, Mihrimah. This has opened the field to speculative identifications of sixteenth and seventeenth-century portraits of Ottoman ladies which have been labelled "Roxelana" with no supporting evidence. A recently published article by Julian Raby has helped clarify matters. Raby demonstrates that a portrait in the Uffizi associated with Titian’s workshop and traditionally labelled Caterina Cornaro is in fact a portrait of Roxelana, as it was modelled on a printed portrait from the 1540s in which the Venetian print-maker Matteo Pagani has clearly identified her as "La Rossa” (See J. Raby, 'Mistaken Identities', in Cornucopia magazine, issue 63, 2021). For an authoritative biography of Roxelana, see L. Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire, 2018. Other portraits of Roxelana sold in these rooms 25 April 2018, lot 193 and 27 October 2021, lot 168.