Art Institute of Chicago

Mustapha Kahn, from Portraits of the Emperors of Turkey

John Young

Date

1815

Medium

Mezzotint, hand-colored with brush and watercolor, on ivory wove paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The fifteenth Ottoman sultan, Mustapha I, ruled briefly from 1617 to 1618 and from 1622 to 1623, without much national or international incident. Contemporary sources described him as mentally ill, “childish” or “unbalanced,” while others believed him to be a holy figure. Here John Young simplifies the original miniature portrait, which showed the sultan standing before a bookcase of some 200 volumes, by leaving him with a single book in his hand. Mustapha is the only member of the warrior-like clan to be shown in such a literary pose.

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