Abstract
Although they worked within the emergent Ottoman visual idiom, the court historian Seyyid Lokman (in office 1569–97) and the artist Osman (act. ca. 1565–85) appear to have used Western European models, specifically, Paolo Giovio's Elogia, when they created the 1579 book of imperial portraits, the Şemā'ilnāme (Book of Dispositions). Despite the stark visual differences between the two books, they share several key points: an understanding of the portrait as a visual document; Neoplatonic and physiognomic concepts activating the link between visual and verbal portraiture; and a metaphoric understanding of the relation between an original and its impression.
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