Portrait of Sinan the Great

This is an impression of the rare first state of Dominicus Custos's engraved portrait of Sinan the Great (ca. 1521-1596). Of Albanian origin, Sinan rose to prominence as a military leader and statesman in the Ottoman Empire, becoming Grand Vizier in 1580 and holding this role on and off over the rest of his life. For his part, Custos was an Antwerp-born painter and printmaker who, as newly published research has elucidated, spent time in Innsbruck and Italy before settling in Augsburg in 1588.[1] There he established a thriving print publishing house, training his two stepsons and his brother in the business.

The print appears, in a second state with the plate trimmed at bottom and the date removed, in Custos's four-part series Atrium heroicum Caesarum--the artist's most ambitious achievement. Published in Augsburg about 1600-1602, this series comprises 170 likenesses of 16th-century leaders (imperial, ecclesiastical and military), including a number of rulers from outside the Holy Roman Empire.[2] Custos may well have had the eventual series in mind when he engraved this portrait of Sinam in 1595.

For the series, Custos drew upon a wide range of models, including other prints, paintings, and portrait medals. The identity of the "Georgius Wickgram Spirensis" credited as the designer of the Sinan portrait--along with three others in the series--is uncertain. The fact that he is given explicit credit (unusual within the series) suggests a figure of some renown. A German poet by the name of Georg (or Jorg) Wickram, sometimes associated with the city of Speyer, was active in the early-to-mid-sixteenth century. It is possible that this was the "Wickgram Spirensis" (Wickram of Speyer) who produced the now untraced drawing, or possibly even written description, that served Custos as the basis for his engraving of Sinan. The print, including the ornamentation surrounding the potrait, was copied by the slightly later German printmaker Heinrich Ulrich the Elder (Hollstein.CII.339); this copy also credits "Georgius Wickgram Spirensis" as inventor, but does not name Custos.




[1] Jorg Diefenbacher. The New Hollstein: German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts, 1400-1700: Dominicus Custos. Ed. Eckhard Leuschner (Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel, 2022), vol. 1, pp. xxiii-lxx.

[2] See ibid, p. xliii-xlviii.

[3] Ibid, p. xlvii.