A RARE OTTOMAN WOOD PANEL WITH THE IMPERIAL COAT OF ARMS OF SULTAN ABDULHAMID II (R. 1876-1909)
TURKEY, CIRCA 1900
Estimate: £7,000 - £10,000
Auction: 11 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
of square form, carved in high relief with the Ottoman coat of arms of Sultan Abdulhamid II backed with symbolic objects, surmounted with Sultan Abdulhamid II’s tughra
Dimensions
49cm x 44cm
Footnote
Every sultan of the Ottoman Empire had his own imperial monogram, called the tughra, which served as his royal signature. The Ottoman imperial coat of arms in the European heraldic sense was created in the late 19th century. Abdulmecid I (r. 1876-1909) was made a Stranger Knight of the Garter by Queen Victoria, which required him to provide a coat of arms to be placed alongside those of his predecessors. As there was no existing Ottoman coat of arms a new one had to be invented, the design of which was finalised by his successor Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909) on April 17, 1882.
This panel features Abdulhamid II’s imperial coat of arms in all its glory, including a variety of firearms from cannons to revolvers, swords, pikes and halberds, the scales of justice, the books of Shari’a and western-style law, the two flags representing Islam and the Ottoman Empire, and even the diamond-set brooches of the five main Ottoman orders of excellence at the bottom. Despite the visual complexity of the arrangement, the tughra included at the top is finely carved and fully legible. This composition has been described by the historian Edhem Eldem as “no fewer than thirty-six items that formed a grandiose… allegory for a dying empire”, but it was heavily promoted by the Sultan himself and came to be closely associated with his reign (see E. Eldem, "The Changing Design and Rhetoric of Ottoman Decoration, 1850-1920” in The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 28, Turkey (2016), pp. 39-40).
The only comparable panel carved on wood with the tughra of Sultan Abdulhamid II is in the reading room of the the Istanbul University Library. This example is located at the top of the main bookcase, and was in fact produced by Sultan Abdulhamid himself as he was a master carpenter. The bookcase was originally located in the Yildiz Palace Library, founded by Sultan Abdulhamid II, but was moved to the university on the orders of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.