Book Description

An exceptional catalogue for a memorable exhibtion. This beautiful book of the 2014 celebration at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum of 600 years of Ottoman–Polish relations brings together a treasre trove of art from Polish collections as well as museums in Istanbul, including the Topkapı and the Sadberk Hanım Museum.

A not-too-weighty tome (under 2kg), the book is in paperback, with smallish but finely printed images of the texiltes, pottery, books, paintings and arms. It includes detailed footnotes. In our opinion, essential for anyone interested in Ottoman culture, but difficult to buy outside the museum. The cover image is a detail of Luigi Mayer’s famous watercolour of Count Piotr Potocki’s entry into Pera in 1790, now at the King Jan III Museum in Wilanów.

The relationship between the two powers, often rivals, frequently allied, is captured in this equestrian portrait of Sultan Mehmed IV and King Jan Kazimierz, probably executed in Amsterdam in 1667 to mark the renewal of their alliance (copperplate engraving on laid paper, 25.3x34.5cm, Princes Czartoryski Foundation FXXCz, inv. no. XV R.2464).

This figure on a prancing black stallion is one of the last of the famous Polish Ottomans, Michał Czaykowski, or Sadık Pasha, as he was known. The watercolour in Warsaw’s National Museum is attributed to Juliusz Kossak (1824–99) (MNW, inv. no. Rys.Pol. 12272).