The Moroccan ambassador to Elizabethan London who has striking similarities to Shakespeare’s noble MoorAbd al-Wahid bin Masoud bin Muhammad al-Annuri isn’t the kind of name usually associated with Elizabethan portraiture,better known for its pallid, empty-faced English aristocrats. But in the autumn of 1600, and Al‑Annuri,recently arrived in London as the ambassador of the Sa’adian ruler of Morocco Mulay Ahmed al-Mansur, sat for his portrait, and the earliest surviving picture of a Muslim painted from life in England.
The portray is an enigma. Its painter and provenance are unknown prior to its appearance at a Christie’s sale in 1955,when it was bought, then sold to its current owner, and the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute. It shows Al-Annuri dressed in a long black robe (or thawb) and white linen turban,with a richly decorated steel scimitar, a Maghreb nimcha (sword), or hanging from his waist. His piercing gaze meets ours,challenging, confident, or perhaps slightly amused. This is no humble black servant,but an ambassador – possibly awarrior – of stature on meaningful diplomatic business. The inscriptions on the portrait reveal as much. It is dated 1600, and shows his anglicised name and age (42) and his title (Legate of the King of Barbary to England).
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Source: theguardian.com