page_title: Melchior Lorck
section_title: Imperial employment
hierarchical_section_title: Melchior Lorck / Imperial employment
caption_attribution_description: English: Engraved portrait of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, 1562, by Melchior Lorck
context_page_description: Melchior Lorck was a renaissance painter, draughtsman, and printmaker of Danish-German origin. He produced the most thorough visual record of the life and customs of Turkey in the 16th century, to this day a unique source. He was also the first Danish artist of whom a substantial biography is reconstructable and a substantial body of artworks is attributable.
context_section_description: Lorck returned to Western Europe in the autumn of 1559. In 1560 he is documented in Vienna, where he stayed until 1566. His drawings of antique monuments of Constantinople and surroundings date from these years. The Arcadius Column, the pedestal of Theodosius the Great's obelisk on the hippodrome and the pedestal of Constantine's Column both represent monuments that are lost today. The monumental Prospect of Constantinople, seen from across the Golden Horn at Galata / Pera was also made at this time. This drawing, 1145 centimeters long and 45 centimeters high, drawn on twenty-one sheets, executed in brown and black ink with some watercolor, teeming with detail, is considered to be one of the hallmarks of early topographic drawing. It also contains the earliest self-portrait of the artist. See the Constantinople Prospect in Leiden's University Library.
  While in Vienna, Melchior Lorck was contacted both by the brother of the late king Christian III, duke Hans the Elder of Schleswig-Holstein-Haderslev who demanded his service. Lorck responded willingly, but was eager to excuse himself for being too busy. While finally answering the duke in January 1563, he also sent King Frederik II a letter, containing a lengthy description of his career up to the date. In 1562 Melchior Lorck had produced the large engraved bust portraits of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and the Persian envoy in Constantinople, Ismaïl, which he added to his letters. In the letters, Melchior Lorck asked for funding, which effected a gracious royal gift of 200 Danish rigsdaler, to be handed over to him via his brother, Andreas Lorck, who had himself recently stepped into the king's service in Copenhagen.
  Soon after he had written to both lords in January 1563, new assignments kept him busy however, and he remained in Vienna for another five years. In 1562, the son of Ferdinand I, Maximilian, had been elected King of the Romans (i.e. emperor-to-be) in Frankfurt am Main, and had since been travelling down the Danube to receive the homage of the cities, with a final stop in Vienna, which prepared itself for a grandiose entry to receive him in March 1563. Melchior Lorck was put in charge of the setting, which meant redressing of both the city itself, with triumphal arches, wine wells and tree-lined streets and of the inhabitants, dressed i Habsburg colours, varying from rank to rank and occupation to occupation.
  In 1564, on February 22, the emperor confirmed the alleged noble status of both Melchior Lorck and his three brothers, Caspar, Balthasar, and Andreas, citing in the elevation document Melchior's Turkish sojourn as the main argument for the elevation. Around the same time, Lorck was employed as Hartschier (from Italian: arciere), an honorary position with an annual salary in the horse guard of the emperor that he would keep until 1579.
  
  In 1566, he followed the emperor in a campaign in Hungary that would eventually see the death of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent during the Battle of Szigetvár.
  In December that year the emperor, Maximilian, wrote a rather unusual letter to his “cousin” (i.e. cousin in office), King Frederik II, asking him to receive Melchior Lorck well, as Lorck was to go to Denmark to collect the inheritance after his eldest brother, Caspar, who had been killed in the Northern Seven Years' War between Denmark and Sweden. The letter also demanded the king to let him return to the emperors service, thus foreboding any claim that the king would have on Lorck.
   As Melchior travelled north, however, he appears only to have come as far as Flensburg, before making his way south again.
caption: Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, allegedly seen by Lorck in Constantinople on February 15, 1559, engraving, 2nd state, 40.7 × 28.9 cm.
  Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Department of Prints and Drawings, inv. no. KKSgb6141
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