Constantinople to Istanbul review – you won’t want to leave this lavish celebration of double imperial splendour

V&A, London
Treasures from the two world-defining cultures that somehow coexisted in one mighty city keep on dazzling in this gorgeous, unmissable show

Two empires compete to bewitch you in this exhibition that offers a double bubble of beauty. It collides the Byzantine empire, whose capital Constantinople was officially inaugurated on 11 May AD330, with the Ottoman Turks who conquered this great city in 1453 and turned it into Istanbul. The combined glories of two lost worlds – the Ottoman empire was dissolved in 1922 – beget an utterly enrapturing blockbuster. I lost all track of time in this dream city of gold and ivory.

Even the human form is magically transfigured here into mineral and metal. The martyred abbess St Eudokia becomes a Byzantine icon of marble inlaid with coloured glass, wearing a crown of precious stones and an exquisite dress patterned with diamonds and decorated with pearls and emeralds. It is a masterpiece of abstract splendour that looks like a Klimt painting, but this icon can’t have influenced him because it wasn’t excavated until 1929.

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