01 work, PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Titian's portrait of Roxelana (Haseki Hurrem Sultan, with Footnotes #150

Follower of Titian, Italy, Venetian School, 16th century

A portrait of Roxelana (Haseki Hurrem Sultan, 1506-58)

Oil on canvas

110.5 by 92cm.

Private collection

Estimated for 20,000 - 30,000 GBP in October 2022

Known in the West as Roxelana, this painting depicts one of the most famous women of the Ottoman empire. Originally from what is now western Ukraine she was sold at an early age in the slave markets of Constantinople and entered the harem of Sultan Süleyman I ('The Magnificent'). Her Turkish name, Hurrem meant 'the laughing/joyful one' and she soon became the Sultan's favourite, bearing him six children, until he eventually defied convention and married her.

Süleyman revealed his passion for her in poetry: “My most sincere friend, my confidante, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love…The most beautiful among the beautiful…” She enjoyed influence not only over his heart but on his running of the empire. She corresponded with Süleyman when he was away on campaign, keeping him abreast of developments in the capital, and she corresponded with King Sigismund of Poland. She was a major sponsor of architecture and charitable foundations, including in Jerusalem. Most notoriously, though, she promoted her own son at the expense of Süleyman’s oldest, a son by another concubine. Gossip among both the Ottomans and Europeans claimed she had bewitched the Sultan. More on this painting

Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, known in English as Titian, was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, 'from Cadore', taken from his native region.

Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of colour, exercised a profound influence not only on painters of the late Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western artists.

During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically, but he retained a lifelong interest in colour. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone were without precedent in the history of Western painting. More on Titian

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