Italian School, 17th century

"The Newbattle Turks": A set of 6 historical portraits comprising: Tamerlane (1336-1405); Bayezid I (1360-1403); Mehmed I (1381-1421); Murad II (1404-51); Bayezid II (1447-1512); Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566)

Lot Closed

January 20, 03:18 PM GMT

Estimate

50,000 - 70,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of the Marquess of Lothian

Italian School, 17th century

each inscribed in Latin with the identity of the sitter;

some inscribed with inventory numbers

all oil on canvas

the largest measuring approx.: 63.5 x 49 cm.; 25 x 19 ¼ in.; the smallest measuring approx.: 57.1 x 44.3 cm.; 22 ½ x 17 ½ in.

(6)

Probably William Kerr, 3rd Earl of Lothian (1605-75);
Thence by descent.

J. Macky, A journey through Scotland: in familiar letters from a gentleman here, to his friend abroad. Being the third volume, which compleats Great Britain, London 1723, p. 53;
Newbattle Abbey inventory, 10 March 1798 (listed in a variety of rooms);
Newbattle Abbey inventory, March 1833, nos 366, 368-72;
R. Wenley, The Lothian Picture Collection: History and Context, M.Litt. diss., University of St Andrews, 1990, pp. 62-64.

These portraits are based on works from the Giovio Series, the set of 484 likenesses of rulers, statesmen and other figures of note, assembled by the 16th-century Italian Renaissance historian and biographer, Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), who built a museum at Lake Como specifically to house the works. The original series has not survived intact, but copies made for Cosimo I de' Medici between 1552 and 1568 are held at the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

The portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566) exists in several versions - in addition to the Uffizi portrait, which is likewise inscribed with his age '43', there is a portrait, today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, that was copied for the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria between 1578 and 1599 to hang at Schloss Ambras in Innsbruck. A newly discovered version, on copper and not inscribed with the sitter's age, was recently sold in these Rooms, 31 March 2021, lot 58, for £438,500.¹ The present painting relates most closely to the portrait in the Uffizi.

William Kerr's (1605-75) legacy to the Lothian collection constituted some 300 pictures, a quantity that is all the more staggering in light of the political upheaval of these decades and William’s relatively small fortune. Chief among his collection were portraits, such as this set - in 1645, for instance, John Clerk (1611-79), Kerr's agent in Europe, refers to his purchase for William of ‘32 pictures off noblemen and uthers in France [sic.]’,² following the taste for such series of ‘worthies’, that he would have seen in the grand Renaissance collections he encountered on his Tour.

¹https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/arts-of-the-islamic-world-india-including-fine-rugs-and-carpets/a-rare-and-important-portrait-of-sueleyman-the

² 6 April 1645, Paris; Clerk to William Kerr, 3rd Earl of Lothian.