Memphis Blue, Ottoman Gold

By DANIEL S. LEVY

EXHIBIT: SPLENDORS OF THE OTTOMAN SULTANS

WHERE: MEMPHIS COOK CONVENTION CENTER

WHAT: JEWELRY, WEAPONS AND OTHER ARTIFACTS

THE BOTTOM LINE: A rare show of Turkish treasures in an unlikely setting.

Until now, the city's best-known treasure has been the classic blues of Beale Street, its proudest artifacts the bejeweled jumpsuits displayed in a shrine to its patron saint, Elvis. But these days such attractions are being upstaged by a succession of museum-quality jewels, porcelains, gilded carriages and statuary. Yes, in Memphis. The city has managed to put itself on the international circuit of blockbuster art shows. Its current offering: Splendors of the Ottoman Sultans, an opulent array of 274 possessions of the militarily ruthless yet artistically keen Turks who ruled a wedge of Europe and Asia for nearly six centuries. Gathered from the legendary Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul and other Ottoman collections, it is the largest show of Ottoman art ever to travel beyond Turkey's borders.

And which museum is exhibiting the show? Well, here comes another surprise. Memphis, like most cities outside New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, lacks a large museum space. So Splendors is installed in the downtown Memphis Cook Convention Center. The 26,000-sq.-ft. facility within the center was built for boat shows, union conventions and the like, but the exhibition's designers have created a temporary museum space befitting the 16th century Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The King's home at Graceland can't touch it.

Splendors, which is on display through Aug. 16, is the third exhibition presented by Wonders: the Memphis International Cultural Series, a city- sponsored effort launched in 1987. The previous two: Ramesses the Great and, in 1991, Catherine the Great: Treasures of Imperial Russia. All three have made a virtue of the fact that the convention center is a vast space, unconstrained by walls and the other restrictions of permanent galleries; thus it gives curators the flexibility to create the museum of their dreams. The installation for Ramesses, for example, opened with a grand processional hall formed by rows of 45-ft.-tall lotus-topped columns. In Catherine an entire cobblestone courtyard was built and the monarch's gilded coronation carriage set down in the middle of it.

For Splendors, local architect Louis Pounders recreated a sultan's palace, complete with the asymmetric arrangement of rooms one would find in a structure completed over several generations. "There is a sense of mystery about ((Turkish)) architecture," says Pounders. "I tried to breathe that into the design." Banded arches spring from Islamic columns, windows are scrimmed with haremesque screens, walls are painted to resemble the colorful Iznik tiles renowned throughout the former empire.

Another enticement dangled by Memphis is the offer of funds for restoration. For Ramesses, the center reconstructed a 47-ton colossus of Ramesses the Great at a cost of $125,000, then barged it over from Memphis, Egypt. For Splendors, it has not only restored many of the objects, but has also given seed money to establish a conservation laboratory at the Topkapi Palace Museum.

The Ottomans were brutal rulers but passionate lovers of beauty. They started as nomadic warriors under Osman I in the 14th century and eventually controlled the land from Morocco across to Iran and from Poland down to the Arabian Sea. As they conquered and pillaged, they gathered the best art and artisans.

From birth they were surrounded by artwork. For many of the sultans, being a gifted artist was as important as being a great warrior: Suleyman I was a poet, Ahmed III a calligrapher and Selim III a composer. Keepsakes and baubles were always in demand for birthdays and special occasions. Their studios and warriors worked overtime, and the court attracted masters of the West like Gentile Bellini. This constant infusion of diverse styles from conquered territories and visiting artists mutated and enriched the designs, resulting in art that was fanciful and sometimes outright gaudy.

Some of the works in the show, such as the harem carriage -- a gilt coach designed with lattice windows so that women could look out discreetly -- have never traveled outside Turkey. The exhibition's most stunning item is the Topkapi Dagger, featured in the 1964 movie Topkapi. Created in the 1740s as a gift for the Shah of Persia, who was assassinated before he could take possession, it is a sword-length blade that is more a showpiece than a weapon. Who would want to bloody a knife with a hilt containing three walnut-size emeralds and a diamond-covered sheath?

Splendors contains many objects from the daily lives of the sultans. They ate from Chinese porcelain plates with rock crystal utensils. Young princes were dressed in silk-lined caftans emblazoned with tulips and pomegranates and rocked to sleep in hazelnut cradles plated in silver and sprinkled with emeralds and diamonds. When they went to war, they donned conical helmets decorated with floral patterns and studded with turquoise and rubies, fought with ivory-inlaid muskets and swords and slept in satin-lined field tents. Even their horses pranced around in gold-plated headgear and golden stirrups.

Those days of ostentation are gone. After the empire made the mistake of siding with the Germans in World War I, the Allied nations disbanded it in 1922. Modern Turkey is a democracy seeking admission to the European Community. Yet its former age of monarchy and splendor briefly reigns again on the banks of the Mississippi.