Angels of Protection

Located around 300km south east of Constantinople, on the western side of the Anatolian plateau, Kutahya was home to a flourishing ceramic school between the 16th and early 20th centuries. The soil in the region was abundant with siliceous clay and potters combined this clay with monochrome and polychrome under-painting and a transparent glaze. Kutahya became, after Iznik, the most important centre of ceramic production in the Ottoman Empire – a multicultural centre where Armenians, Turks and Greeks practised the art of glazed ceramics and whose fame subsequently spread across Eurasia.

Armenian potters produced a wide range of architectural tiles and household pottery. The raw materials that gave the ceramic its white hue was abundant and superior in quality. Domestic ware included coffee cups, bowls, saucers, teapots and kettles, vases, jugs, plates, cups, rose water sprinklers, ink pots, money boxes, tables, lemon squeezers...

Over the centuries, Armenian potters pioneered a tradition of provincial and naive decorative style in the form of pictorial scenes and fancy, colourful figures from daily life, as well as religious themes, on both the vessels that were produced for domestic use and objects that were crafted for places of worship.

These pottery pendants, decorated with polychrome six-winged seraphim and crosses, were pierced at either end and hung on chains from oil lamps suspended in churches and mosques.

They were used as barriers against mice (preventing the mice from stealing the oil from the lamp), or for decorative purposes without the oil lamps.

The lamps are prevalent in the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James in Jerusalem and in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre shown here.

The egg-shaped ornaments suspended in the Saint James Cathedral in Jerusalem.

As well as being used in Armenian and Greek churches, these egg-shaped hanging ornaments were also found in mosques. The pottery eggs were undecorated; instead they were glazed with either white, yellow, cobalt blue or turquoise.

Mounted on a base or hung from a wire, the most common decoration used by Armenian potters were the seraphim, the famous six-winged guardian angels of the Old Testament often found in Armenian liturgical objects and paintings. Painted in polychrome, the angels’ heads are often interspersed with Jerusalem crosses.

Unusual in its size, this egg represents the Archangel Gabriel surrounded by three cherubs and six crosses.

In this ceramic piece, the three seraphim, with turquoise and yellow wings, are haloed. The focus on the large round face of the angel and the outlines are sketchier. Above and below the face are pairs of overlapping wings.

On this piece, the two lateral wings have a more animated shape as if beating to take flight.

Besides their practical and decorative functions, what was the meaning of these egg-shaped hangings? Did they belong to the ancient universal symbol of fertility, represent the creation of the world, or depict Easter and the Resurrection?

Some ceramics were spherical in shape with floral patterns and medallions.

The Armenian potters’ decorative vocabulary with its provincial, naive style and genre scenes is evident on this richly-decorated spherical hanging ornament.

The Armenian ceramic art of Kutahya is marked by a distinctive artistic originality and creativity. The industry flourished for over four centuries and today, Kutahya ceramics can be found in various international private and public collections.

During the Armenian Genocide, potters from Kutahya were deported, and subsequently from 1919 Jerusalem became home to several Armenian families of craftsmen. They created polychrome ceramics in a modern style while at the same time maintaining a dialogue with the traditions of Kutahya pottery. They still do so today.