Şevket Dağ (1875-1944)

The Gate of Sultan Selim II’s Tomb

1909

Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi (Emirgan, İstanbul, Türkiye)

Şevket Dağ was born in Istanbul, studied at the School of Fine Arts where Osman Hamdi Bey (d. 1910) and Salvatore Valéri (d. 1946) taught, and after his graduation worked for years as an arts teacher at Galatasaray Lycée and various teachers academies.1 He participated in the foundation of Ottoman Society of Painters, founded under the patronage of the last Ottoman caliph Prince Abdülmecid Efendi (d. 1944), an artist of his own right, and under the leadership of contemporary artists such as Ruhi Arel (d. 1931), Sami Yetik (d. 1945), Hikmet Onat (d. 1977) and İbrahim Çallı (d. 1960).

Dağ is best known for his paintings of historical mosques, hans and marketplaces. He focuses on the atmosphere and the monumental structure of the environment; the rare figures in his paintings are strikingly small.

Painted in 1909, this work shows the door of Sultan Selim II’s tomb, built in 1576-77 by the celebrated architect Sinan within the grounds of Hagia Sofia. All the details of the door frame in marble of two colours, the wooden door panels, the heavy cloth door cover, the tile decoration and the inscription are shown. Above the folded portion of the cloth covering the door and within a cartouche is the Kelime-i Tevhîd (There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet), while the meaning of the Turkish inscription above the door is as follows:

Sultan Selim has passed away, may Allah, Lord of the worlds have mercy on him.
The children of that Sultan are also gone. May Allah have mercy on all of them.
For him, they made a tomb like paradise, worthy of being called the Sublime Pavilion in Eden.
A voice from up above gave us the date of this building as: ‘Tomb of Sultan Selim of pure faith’ (984/1577)

The two pairs of shoes, a cane and a pair of birds outside the door are lively figures in secondary positions, in the usual Dağ style. On the bottom right corner of the painting are his signature in both Arabic and Latin letters and the word Constantinople in Latin alphabet.