Portraits of Empires: Habsburg Albums from the German House in Ottoman Constantinople, by Robyn Dora Radway Published in The Art Bulletin (Vol. 107, No. 2, 2025)

New book review out of #portraitsofempires in The Art Bulletin! Thanks go to Nebahat Avcıoğlu for the deep engagement!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Delightful new review out about my monograph, #PortraitsofEmpires in the Journal of Early Modern History.

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Getty Research Institute, 2013.M.24, fol. 217r, second half of the sixteenth century. The so-called "silhouette paper" has a block for text and eight-pointed stars. She is painted over the text block region, converting it into a room through the introduction of a floor with tiles and shadows that create the illusion of plasticity. Prack was a messenger for the Habsburg resident ambassador to Ottoman Constantinople. The artist here is unknown.

Mood today: sultana holding a fan in the album amicorum of Hans Joachim Prack von Asch from circa 1587–92. She is not messing around... dagger, sassy hand on her hip, and even breaking the fourth wall with that right foot. 😍

#PortraitsofEmpires

His coat of arms include the same hand that appears in the top left of his professor's portrait now in Tübingen in the Professorengalerie in Tüningen. For more on Prack, his album, and similar decorated papers, see #portraitsofempires

PLAN: Prag, Knihovna královské kanonie premonstrátu na Strahove, DG IV 25, fol. 43v

#OTD in #history November 16, 1575, Johann Huetstockher the younger signed the #albumamicorum of the master of the kitchens in the German House in Constantinople, Sebald Plan. Huetstockher was named as a messenger in Stefan Gerlach's travel narrative #portraitsofempires

#OTD in history, November 15, 1590, johann Schürer von Krumau signed the #albumamicorum of Johann Lucano in the German House in Ottoman Constantinople. Lucano was a member if ambassador Pezzen's retinue. I found out about this album after publishing #portraitsofempires. I am sure there are more!

#OTD December 17, 1574, Paul Knibbe of the Netherlands and Benedict von Ahlefeldt of Holstein signed the album amicorum of Christoph Pfister, secretary to the Habsburg ambassador in Constantinople. Both men were passing through on a pilgrimage. #PortraitsofEmpires

#OTD, November 30, 1591, Habsburg resident ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Friedrich von Kreckwitz signed the #albumamicorum of the messenger Hans Joachim Prack von Asch. See the silhouette paper and coat of arms 😍. Getty Research Institute: 2013.M.24, fol. 39r. #PortraitsofEmpires

Caspar von Abschatz’s Album Amicorum: Collecting (in) the Ottoman World Caspar von Abschatz’s Album Amicorum: Collecting (in) the Ottoman World was published in Manuscript Albums and their Cultural Contexts on page 63.

Want to know more about one of the most exciting albums discussed in my book #PortraitsofEmpires? Check out my latest article on ABSCHATZ in this fantastic edited volume 😍🤩

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