Lot 108: A Sultan and his entourage entering a palace

Jacopo Leonardis (Palma 1723-1797 Venice)
A Sultan and his entourage entering a palace
black lead, watercolor, bodycolor, heightened with white and gold, black in framing lines
18½ x 27½ in. (470 x 699 mm.)

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, La Turquerie au XVIIIème siècle , 1911, no. 281.

Auguste Boppe; and thence by descent to the present owner.

Leonardis was a pupil of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and is mostly known as an engraver. This scene of an Ottoman sultan and his entourage proceeding througha a palace gate demonstrates the artist's knowledge of the Ottoman world, whether through first-hand knowledge or through his own visit to the Eastern Mediterranean is unknown.