This year’s Tessin lecture is given by the renown Romanian-Spanish art historian Victor I. Stoichita. The lecture will focus on Italian School of Venice-artist Gentile Bellini’s paintings from his visit to Istanbul circa 1480, especially his portrait of Sultan Mehmet II. The lecture will be held in English.
Free admission, no pre-bookings
Date and time: Wednesday 11 Otcober, 17:30–18:30. Please note: after regular opening hours. The main entrance opens at 17:15.
Venue: The South Courtyard, entrance floor
Language: English
Gentile Bellini, The Sultan Mehmet II, 1480. Oil on canvas, 70x52 cm. National Gallery, London. NG3099. Wikimedia Commons Public Domain.
Gentile Bellini (Venice 1429-1507) stayed in Istanbul for just over a year (until the end of 1480, or the beginning of 1481), during which time, if the sources are to be believed, the favours bestowed upon him by the sultan were prodigious. A number of sketches reveal him to have paid a great deal of attention to all the new sights he discovered in the city’s streets, and sources mention several commissions emanating from the seraglio. But the most important result of this visit was his portrait of the sultan, which now hangs in the National Gallery in London. It is an exceptional example of cultural hybridisation, and it is in this light that it should be approached and analysed.
Victor I. Stoichita. Photo: Giorgia Fiorio.
About Victor I Stoichita
Victor I. Stoichita (born in Bucharest in 1949) is Emeritus at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He was awarded the Louvre Chair in 2014, the Bernard Berenson Lectures at Harvard University's Centre for Renaissance Studies (I Tatti) in 2016, the European Chair at the College de France in 2018 and the Hegel Lecture at the Freie Universität in Berlin 2022. In 2020 he was awarded the scientific prize of the Aby Warburg Foundation in Hamburg and the Martin Warnke Medal. He is the author of several works on the history of art, translated throughout the world, and of an autobiographical novel which was awarded the Prix de l'Académie Française in 2015.
The Tessin Lecture
Once a year the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm invites a prominent international scholar to give a lecture in art history. The lecture, which is public, is a way to pay tribute to an exceptional scholar in art history and emphasize the museum’s commitment to research.