OSMAN II

OSMAN II

SECHBEHENTER KAISER DER TURKEN IM JAHRE 1618

German, c. 1700

Engraving…20 x 12 cm.

OSMAN II (GENÇ OSMAN) (1604-1622)…Sulatan of the Ottoman empire from 1618, aged 14…He led the Ottoman army into Poland, but after loosing the Battle of Khotyn he was forced to withdraw. He blamed his defeat on the Janissaries: his attempts to curtail their power led to a revolt in which OSMAN was strangled with a bowstring…

The portrait is taken from a Turkish-school painting. Published in Demetrius Cantemir’s “History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire”…