The ambassador, the sultan, and the artist

By Duncan Bull, Günsel Renda

Subjects: Dutch Painting, Exhibitions, Travels, Portraits, Social life and customs, Sultans in art, Court and courtiers, History, Ambassadors in art, Courts and courtiers in art

Description: When the Dutch ambassador Cornelis Calkoen came to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul to present his credentials to Sultan Ahmed III, he had this important event recorded by the painter Jean Baptiste Vanmour. Together with the many depictions of court dignitaries and genre pieces by Vanmour, these paintings provide a remarkable picture of life at the Ottoman court in the first half of the eighteenth century.