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Medallist: Costanzo da Ferrara, 1450-1524
commemorating Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottomans, 1451-1481
Large cast bronze medal 1481. (Ø 120,2 mm; 490,33 gr.) SVLTANI MOHAMMETH OCTHO MANI VGVLI BIZANTII INPERATORIS. Bust left, with moustache, wearing turban and cape // MOHAMETH ASIE ET GRETIE INPERATORIS YMAGO EQVESTRIS IN EXERCITVS. The Sultan, in turban and robes, scimitar at side, baton in right, riding left on horseback ; in background, rocky landscape with two leafless trees and castle in distance ; below, on the ground OPVS CONSTANTII.
Extremely rare, especially in this quality. Suspension hole. Extremely fine contemporary cast
Lot 6 / estimation CHF 50’000/ hammer price CHF 85’000
Reference: Armand I, p. 78, n°1 (Ø 121 mm); Hill, Corpus I, p. 80, n°322 (Ø 120 mm); Hill & Pollard (Kress Coll.) -.
Provenance: Auction Adolf E. Cahn 59, Francfort (Germany), 14 March 1928, lot n°2188.
Collection Dr Johannes Jantzen, Auction Sternberg XXIX, Zurich (Switzerland), 30 October 1995, lot n°696.
Artistic merit, historical importance, and symbolic power, rarely does a medal unite in its core all of these characteristics. And even rarely does a medal succeed in capturing and expressing the true spirit of its time, but when it does, as it is the case here, a medal becomes a real masterpiece.
Our video presents the characteristics of this medal, like its iconography, its rarity,
its historical and numismatic importance as well as its artistic merit and symbolic power.
The medal was created in 1481 by the Italian painter and medallist Costanzo da Ferrara to commemorate and remember the death of one of the most significant rulers of the Renaissance: Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
It is one of 8 different types of medals that were specifically made for the sultan by various renowned Italian medallists, who had been personally invited by the sultan to the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople for this purpose. Among these variants, this type displays the portrait that is considered one of the best artistic achievements of the Quattrocento.
This medal is a remarkable and beautiful testimony, cast in Bronze, to the desire of a great Renaissance ruler to achieve immortality and to be remembered not only as an exceptional military leader, but also as a humanist prince of great sophistication and love for Western art.
This medal is possibly one of the very few original contemporary specimens, thought to have survived the passing of time, of which there are 5 in museums. One is in the collections of the coin cabinet of Berlin, one in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, one in the British Museum in London, one in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, and one in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. To the best of our knowledge, the remaining examples, including this one, that can be found on the market, can probably be counted on just one hand, what makes this medal an absolute rarity.
In the summer of 1444, Mehmed II was appointed sultan at the age of just 12. He received an extremely strict education and studied and learnt several foreign languages. His favourite idol was Alexander the Great. At the age of 21, Mehmed succeeded in conquering Constantinople, thanks to a clever and risky idea, and with the help of an army of 100,000 men and cannons, including a huge 8 metres long cannon, despite fierce byzantine resistance. Constantinople was considered the most important and well-fortified city of the time and since its foundation by Constantine the Great in AD 330, no fewer than 23 siege attacks had been failed.
Mehmeds’ extraordinary military and political achievements have since been recognised as a milestone in both Western European and Eastern European history.
However, Mehmed II wanted to be remembered not only as an exceptional military leader but also as a humanist prince of great sophistication and love for Western art. This medal is therefore a remarkable and beautiful testimony, cast in bronze, to the desire of a great Renaissance ruler to achieve immortality. In medals, Mehmed II recognised the perfect, imperishable medium to create an eternal and immortal statement in metal that, like the ancient coins of Alexander the Great, would stand the test of time.
Although Mehmed’s military successes clearly proved he was an exceptional military leader, he soon realized that his vision of attaining worldwide recognition could not be achieved solely through military conquests. He therefore sought to promote his authority through the arts, as he believed this could be a powerful instrument to reflect his prestige and authority, both within and outside his empire.
This medal illustrates Mehmed’s desire to be seen as a humanist Prince, whose figure would not be considered complete, without an interest in art, and especially in portrait medals. On this medal, Mehmed is clearly represented as an Ottoman sultan, wearing a Turban and a cape, thus making him undoubtedly an Eastern and Muslim figure. However, the Latin legends as well as the naturalistic way Mehmed is represented clearly differentiates this medal from the traditional Ottoman art of idealistic Islamic portraits as can be found illustrated on ottoman miniatures of the time, placing this medal in the tradition of the Italian Quattrocento.
A second interesting symbolic aspect of this medal appears when we compare it to another medal produced around 1438 by the Italian painter and medalist Pisanello, and considered the first ever produced Renaissance medal. It was crafted for the penultimate Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, as he was attending the Council of Florence and negotiating a military support from the West for its fight against the Ottomans.
By confronting both medals, we can clearly see that Mehmed was, on one hand, willing to put himself in the continuity of the Byzantine emperor, but on the other hand clearly communicating that a new era has come. On the obverse, the portrait of Mehmed is not looking to the right, like John the VIII does, but rather confronting him by looking to the left. Although both men are wearing their typical head cover, which make them recognizable at first sight as Orientals, the use of a Latin legend, instead of a Greek one, may have been a desire of Mehmed to symbolically communicate the undermining of the influence of the ended Byzantine Empire and its language.
Finaly, while both men are riding on horseback in a landscape on the reverses, Mehmed II, clearly described in the legend as being “in exercitus” or in military campaign, is riding to the left, while John the VIII is static. An iconography that may be interpreted as a symbolic way for Mehmed to suggest, that his ambitions as well as those of the Ottoman Empire are clearly directed to the West, a fact that future military campaigns, from Mehmed and its successors will soon clearly demonstrate.
The fact that Mehmed had chosen portrait medals, a recent invention of the Italian Quattrocento, for the purpose of promoting him as a humanist prince, is clearly a further proof of his knowledge and awareness of western artistic fashions. But it may also be explained by two further interesting elements: According to numerous testimonials of the time, Mehmed was a cultivated monarch having been taught by very important scholars.
One of them, was probably Cyriacus of Ancona, an Italian scholar who taught him ancient history and whose great interest in ancient coins is well known. He might well have passed his interest in numismatics to Mehmed, who, inspired by the numerous rediscovered ancient Roman and Greek coins, found on the territory covered by the Ottoman empire, saw in medals the perfect unalterable medium for creating an eternal and immortal statement in metal, that would, as did ancient coins, survive for centuries the passing of time.
When we look at this medal, another great artist comes to mind: Gentile Bellini, considered, at the time, the most prestigious painter in Venice. He was sent, as a cultural ambassador, to Constantinople in 1479 by the Venetian Government as part of a peace settlement between Venice and the Ottoman empire.
On a request made by Mehmed himself to content his interest in the Italian art of naturalistic portraiture, Bellini’s Portrait of the Sultan Mehmed II, now at the National Gallery in London, is nowadays the most famous and most used illustration of Mehmed the Second. And we can clearly see that all elements that make Mehmeds’ portrait by Bellini so beautiful and realistic: like his sunken neck, his arched brow and his aquiline nose can also be admired on this medal, making it, without any contest, of the greatest artistic merit.
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