A portrait is more than a likeness of a person. It captures the essence not only of the sitter but of a particular time. And often, of the artists themselves.
This idea is illustrated in two very different portraits currently on show at Christie’s Dubai from two of its upcoming auctions. The first is a portrait of an Ottoman sultan, part of the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds sale, which will take place on October 24 in London.
The profile image of a man dressed in richly decorated clothes and a large turban is entrancing at first glance. He is Suleyman I, known as Suleyman the Magnificent in Europe and Suleyman the Lawgiver in the Ottoman Empire of which he was the 10th and longest-reigning sultan, from 1520 until his death in 1566.
“He's probably the most famous and renowned of the Ottoman sultans and he ruled during the golden age in terms of both military prowess but also the arts,” Sara Plumbly, director and head of Islamic Art at Christie's, tells The National. “He was a good, well-respected ruler and for a long time, regarded as 'the magnificent', he was the image of the East.”
Plumbly explains that the portrait was not painted in Turkey but probably in Florence in 1600 by artist Cristofano dell' Altissimo. Estimated to fetch up to $390,000, the portrait is a copy of an original from a series of portraits on paper of Ottoman sultans probably painted by an Ottoman artist named Haider Raiss. These portraits were incredibly prized and most likely formed the basis for the depictions of Ottoman sultans in the West. They were commissioned to be copied more than once and one of these copies was made by Dell' Altissimo for public display.
“The Ottoman world was a source of riches and wealth," Plumbly adds. "They exported wonderful silk embroideries and textiles to Italy and other things that became part of what people understood of the ‘East’ and so that is what they really concentrated on in the portrait."
In the portrait, the sultan is posed looking outside the frame, his profile distinct, his expression stern and impassive. He’s dressed in a fur coat with jewelled buttons and the textile of his shirt has gold floral appliques. Even his undershirt, which peeks out from between the salmon collar, has an elaborate design.
And while the sultan’s appearance and clothing are characteristic of the impressions of the Ottoman Empire from a western perspective, the stylistic choices of the portrait itself, in particular, Dell’ Altissimo’s use and focus on light, shadow and muted colours, is much more European in execution.
Had this portrait been painted in the style of the Ottomans, the lighting, highlights and shadows would have been much flatter and the colour palette bolder, Plumbly explains.
“The taste would have been towards more bright colours, as that's how you would convey richness,” she says. “Whereas in this portrait it's about showing his strength. It almost doesn't matter that the colours are muted because of the use of shadow, the pose is what matters.”
Around the corner from Suleyman the Magnificent’s profile is another incredibly arresting portrait. In a large-scale, vertical painting, a stylised face emerges from the left side of the frame gazing softly at the viewer. The features of the face are created through a fascinating array of colours and sensually painted gestures.
Called Head, the portrait is by the celebrated Syrian artist Marwan Kassab-Bachi, known simply as Marwan. As part of Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale, which includes highlights from the Dalloul Collection, the painting is part of a series Marwan executed in the 1970s. It is expected to fetch up to $330,000.
“For Marwan, the face is like a landscape of the soul,” says Meagan Kelly Horsman, managing director of Christie’s Middle East. “They are very painterly, the use of colour is super expressive. And it starts to sort of move into the abstraction that you see in more detail in his later works.”
Marwan is mostly known and celebrated for his later works described as “face in landscape” where, through a specific and difficult technique, he morphs faces into landscapes. This surrealist figuration moved more towards abstraction as his works became smaller and smaller throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
“His works are really arresting, they stop you in your tracks, especially in this series,” Horsman adds. “You're stopped by the immediacy and then the closer you get you see the softness the use of colour – there's purples, there's blues – it's sort of strange but works overall.”
The painting, despite being ambiguous in terms of likeness and gender, is a suspected self-portrait of Marwan. Head represents an important phase in Marwan's oeuvre, acting as a bridge from his earlier works of surrealism and figuration before his much more abstract figures later in his career.
Despite being painted at very different times, styles and for distinct purposes, both portraits are connected by their intimacy, immediacy and their ability to draw the viewer in.
“Human beings love to see a version of themselves in art,” Horsman says. “Both of these portraits represent a being, and as you get closer, you learn more. With Suleiman the Magnificent, you learn more about him in a physical way, whereas with Marwan it's perhaps in a more cerebral human kind of way.”
Highlights of Christie’s sales are on display until Monday at Christie's Dubai; the DIFC
