Grand Vizier

On the back of this canvas a Dutch hand wrote Den Primo Vizir, the first vizier, and the number six is painted in yellow in the corner. The grand vizier ran the government in the sultan's name. On appointment he was handed the sultan's seal, and a vizier who fell from favour had to give it back.

His office also lent European diplomacy one of its words. Europeans called the Ottoman government the Sublime Porte, after the high gate at which its business was done, and in Istanbul the name Bâb-ı Âli, the High Gate, came to mean the grand vizier's own offices. An ambassador such as Cornelis Calkoen was accredited to the Porte.

The figure stands full length in a doorway, turned to the left. It is a type standing for the office, and the museum dates it only broadly, between 1700 and 1737. For 12 of those years, from 1718 to 1730, the post was held by Nevşehirli İbrahim Pasha, whom Vanmour also painted from life.