PRIVATE PROPERTY

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Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II: Lives and Afterlives of an Iconic Image By Elizabeth Rodini 224 pages I.B. Tauris

ABJECT OBJECT Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II By Elizabeth Rodini REVIEWED BY BARBARA MORRIS

B O O K

R E V I E W

After James Fergusson, color lithograph, The Palaces of Nimroud Restored, color lithograph in Austen Henry Layard, The Monuments of Ninevah, 2nd Series (London, 1853), pl. 1. The New York Public Library, Digital Collections.

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Elizabeth Rodini’s Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II (2020) landed on my radar through meeting Rodini last year at the American Academy in Rome, where she is the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director. Rodini’s recent object biography investigates a number of intriguing and complex issues. Gentile Bellini, brother of the better-known Giovanni, was a Venetian artist. In 1479, he was commissioned to travel to Istanbul to paint a portrait of the Sultan, Mehmed II. This Renaissance portrait of an Ottoman sultan has gained a broad mystique, its legend perhaps eclipsing the actual substance of the canvas itself. We may follow Rodini into the subterranean vaults of London’s National Gallery, where she finally encounters the portrait she has been exhaustively researching for so long ...in a state of neglect, an object so altered and eroded as to bear little resemblance to its original state. This abject object had been the focus of intense strife and controversy, fought over for centuries. Rodini brings this ostensibly dry and academic subject to life with the intensity of a gripping mystery novel…”Who done it?” Cultural patrimony—the premise that artworks belong in the culture, often the country, where they were made—was a budding idea in 1912 when the owner of the painting, Enid, widow of collector and archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, passed away. The Layard collection, then housed in a palazzo on Venice’s Grand Canal, was willed to her nephew, and London’s National Gallery. Before those parties could resolve who might have rights of ownership, they needed to get the painting to England—no small feat with Italy clinging to its treasured art objects. This question of individual’s rights of ownership is a challenging one: Is it better to support the claims of individuals’ (or institutions) to private ownership of artwork, or will the broader good be served by placing the artwork in a setting deemed more culturally appropriate? The Elgin/Parthenon Marbles are the “litmus test” for this issue, according to Rodini. Lord Elgin brought them from Greece to the British Museum in the early 19th century, where they have now resided for over 200 years. Greece, reasonably arguing that they were looted from the Parthenon in Athens, demands their return. The dispute has raged for centuries; Byron was among the first to condemn the looting. Once this is eventually settled, it may tip the scales for similar repatriation cases across the globe. Rodini takes a measured stance overall, weighing the value of the universality of priceless antiquities against the need to redress past injustices. Her description of studying an image in 2015 of an Assyrian winged bull in the British Museum, concurrent with reading news stories of ISIS defacing with power tools a nearly identical ancient sculpture in Iraq as part of a purge of imagistic artwork, definitely provides food for thought. Still, no excuses can be made for the colonialist and Orientalist impulses of these early plunderers, and repatriation will no doubt be one of the key challenges facing museums as they research the provenance of objects in their collections. Rodini’s thoughtful work offers us an eye-opening window into many enticing, interwoven and labyrinthine realms.


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Articles inside

INTERVIEW: Miranda Garno Nesler

2min
page 62

COMICs: "HERMITAGE" by Butcher & Wood (2021)

1min
page 61

REVIEW: Vonn Sumner and Holly Elander KP Projects

2min
page 60

REVIEW: Tarik Garrett Hunter Shaw Fine Art

2min
page 60

REVIEW: Johanna Breiding Ochi Projects

2min
page 59

REVIEW: Sula Bermùdez-Silverman Murmurs

2min
pages 58-59

REVIEW: “Loosely Stated” ROSEGALLERY

2min
pages 58-59

REVIEW: Lucy Bull David Kordansky Gallery

2min
pages 57-58

REVIEW: Amy Sherald Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles

2min
page 57

REVIEW: Stephen Neidich Wilding Cran Gallery

1min
pages 56-57

REVIEW: Brenna Youngblood Roberts Projects

2min
page 56

A GENTLE PULPIT: Tim Simonds' "Teachers Monarchs and a sound of teaching"

4min
pages 54-55

POEMS & ASK BABS

2min
page 52

BUNKERVISION: Back in the U.S.S.R.BY SKOT ARMSTRONG

2min
page 50

Book Review: ABJECT OBJECT

2min
page 46

HIGH LIFE TO RUINATION: SoCal Photographers Cover It All

1min
pages 44-45

MAKE IT NEW: A Conversation with Emily Barker

6min
pages 36-38

SECRET GARDEN: David Horvitz Explores the Balance Between Private and Public

8min
pages 30-34

PUBLIC RITUALS Senga Nengudi

2min
page 28

GRACE AND GRIT Moving Forward with Women’s Center for Creative Work

4min
pages 26-27

VALUING THE VALUELESS: The Wende Museum

7min
pages 22-25

SIGHTS UNSCENE: LARA JO REGAN

1min
page 18

ART BRIEF: The NFT Craze

4min
pages 20-21

DECODER: Owning Art

3min
page 16

SHOPTALK

5min
pages 14-15
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