Gallery

Comments

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  Joost Daalder July 2, 2011 at 6:47am

  This would have had more dangles originally. But there are enough of them left to function well, and in all other respects this is a very good, early, and rare piece.
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  Alaa eddine SAGID July 2, 2011 at 9:08am

  the coral cabochons reminds me of the work found in the tukish city of  "safranbulu", mainly on belt buckles

   

  nice piece
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  Joost Daalder July 2, 2011 at 10:06am

  Ayis, - Spot on. Truus, in her *Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment*, p. 348, points out that "The Turkish town of Safranbolu [just a different way of spelling it] or Saphrampolis ... was for centuries a centre for the manufacture of jewellery. From illustrations in several books it is clear that this unusual treatment of coral, which was cut into small pointed and ribbed shapes, was common there." She assigns this specific piece, however, to the Adzharians in the Batumi district on the east coast of the Black Sea, perhaps particularly because Torchinskaya (1988: 108) shows amulet containers with an almost identical decoration of coral and granulation as created by them [the point being that the combination of this kind of coral work AND the granulation are so very similar to our piece]. But your pointing at Safranbuly is utterly relevant, for if the piece was indeed made by the Adzharians it would be because this kind of coral work spread east (perhaps via the Black Sea) from that important Turkish centre. You are also right to point at belt buckles: on p. 370 she illustrates, as definitely Turkish, a belt buckle with very similarly carved coral.