Lecture “Portraits of the Queen in Works of Art”

The lecture “Portraits of the Queen in Works of Art” will be held on Thursday, November 27, 2025, at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lecture is dedicated to the long-term research on the figure of Queen Katarina Vukčić Kosača Kotromanić conducted by art historian Husein Mekanović.
The Bosnian Queen Katarina Kosača Kotromanić (1425–1478) spent the last twelve years of her life mostly in Rome, where she actively participated in the public life of the Eternal City. Unfortunately, works by painters and other visual artists that could testify to her activities have not attracted significant attention from researchers. This year marks the 600th anniversary of the birth of Queen Katarina, and on this occasion a lecture will be held presenting valuable works of art preserved in Rome and other parts of the Apennine Peninsula, in places where Queen Katarina resided or maintained contacts with the highest political representatives of the time.

About the Lecturer:

Husein Sejko Mekanović was born in 1972 in the village of Elezovići near Velika Kladuša. He studied Art History and Sociology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, where in 2001 he obtained the degree of Graduate Art Historian and Professor of Sociology. For more than twenty years, he has devoted his scholarly work to the history of medieval art. Some of the specific topics of his research include: art in Bosnia during the reign of Ban Kulin; the coats of arms, seals, and coinage of King Tvrtko I Kotromanić; the name of Bobovac and Bobovac Gothic; the Bobovac bronze cauldron; medieval churches of St. Martin in northwestern Bosnia; and, more recently, the altars of the Counts of Celje in the royal chapel in Sutjeska.
In addition, for decades he has been intensively engaged in research on portraits of the penultimate Bosnian queen, Katarina Kosača Kotromanić, the wife of King Stjepan Tomaš.
He has published numerous scholarly papers and has actively participated in professional conferences in Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad. In addition to his research on Bobovac and Queen Katarina, he is also actively involved in the study of local history and historical events of the municipality of Velika Kladuša, and works as a translator of the Slovenian language.