19 THREE ARMENIAN KÜTAHYA HANGING ORNAMENTS DECORATED WITH CROSSES AND SERAPHIM

Ottoman Empire

18th Century

Heights: 9 cm., 9 cm., 8 cm.

Total Height: 35 cm.

Of oval form, three ceramic hanging ornaments with green, blue, yellow and brown underglaze painting, decorated with crosses and seraphim.

The Christian association of these Kütahya eggs is clearly indicated by the crosses and seraph motifs. A seraph (plural seraphim) is a heavenly figure which plays a role in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Christian tradition, seraphim are placed in the highest rank in the angelic hierarchy. They are the caretakers of God’s throne. Christian theology developed an idea of seraphim as beings of pure light who enjoy direct communication with God.

Similar Kütahya ceramic hanging ornaments, in egg form, can be seen hanged above the altar in the Church of the Holy Archangel in Jerusalem. Please see the photograph in John Carswell, Kütahya Tiles and Pottery from the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Jerusalem, Volume II, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972, Plate 24. For other comparable examples in the Armenian Catholic San Lazzaro monastery in Venice please see, ibid, p. 68 (Fig. 25 o, q). Similar objects are also found in Iznik ware and were destined for mosques. Nurhan Atasoy & Julian Raby. Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, Thames & Hudson, London, 1989, p.41.

These eggs appear to have combined different functions and symbolic meanings. They were symbols of fertility associated with the egg. They were souvenirs of the pilgrimage (similar to ostrich eggs that were brought back from Mecca). Practically, they appear to have been used, in the suspension of oil lamps, to prevent rodents climbing down the chains to consume the oil. Oliver Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands – Kuwait National Museum – The Al-Sabah Collection, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, p. 447.

Two comparable Kütahya ceramic hanging ornaments, decorated with seraphim, from the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Collection, Istanbul, are published in Garo Kürkman’s Toprak, Ateş ve Sır – Tarihsel Gelişimi, Atölyeleri ve Ustalarıyla Kütahya Çini ve Seramikleri, Suna ve İnan Kıraç Vakfı, Istanbul, 2005, pp. 162, 163, 165. For other examples please also see the exhibition catalogue, Aspects of Armenian Art: The Kalfayan Collection, Athens, 2010, p. 73, Nos. 20, 21, 22 and Oliver Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands – Kuwait National Museum –The Al-Sabah Collection, Thames & Hudson, London, 2004, p. 447.

Provenance:

Ex-Dr. Oliver Impey (1936-2005), and Dr. Jane (Mellanby) Impey (1938-2021) Collection, Oxford.

Dr. Oliver Impey was a renowned authority on Japanese art, senior assistant keeper and curator of the Japanese collections in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he took his BA in Zoology. His doctoral thesis (which is to be published posthumously) was on the workings of lizards’ jaws. As an Orientalist, connoisseur and naturalist, he had heredity on his side. Generations of Impeys had served in India, going back to Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal in the 1770s. He and his wife Mary were important collectors and patrons of Indian painting. Lady Impey, in particular, assembled a large menagerie of Indian birds and beasts and had them superbly depicted, often in life size, by her Indian artists. Returning to Oxford, he rejoined the Zoology department and, with customary energy, finished writing his thesis after he had started work at Sotheby’s. In Sotheby’s Furniture and Textiles Department, Oliver’s instinctive connoisseurship and remarkable breadth of knowledge began to develop fully, as well as his intimate knowledge of the art trade. Oxford, however, reclaimed him two years later. In 1967 he was appointed Assistant Keeper for Japanese Art at the Ashmolean. It was Oliver, with Arthur MacGregor, who organised the major international conference on ‘The Origins of Museums’ for the Ashmolean’s Tercentenary in 1983. This gave rise not only to a classic volume of scholarly papers but the founding of the learned Journal of the History of Collections, which they co-edited. In the early 1980s he published ground-breaking articles on seventeenthcentury Japanese export lacquer and on early Japanese painting. In 1996 his most important contribution to Japanese ceramic studies appeared, the masterly Early Porcelain Kilns of Arita. The exceptional esteem in which ‘Impey-san’ was held in Japan for his scholarly contribution was marked in 1997 by the award of the prestigious Koyama Fujio Memorial Prize and Medal. This was followed soon after by the award of his Oxford DLitt. He passed away in 2005.

Qajar Empire 19th Century

Dimensions: 22.5 x 16 cm