A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
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Wow wow wow !!!! Gorgeous Lynn !!!!
Indeed a gorgeous piece Lynn. Congratulations! Peter
This is truly gorgeous and so complete. Do you mind if I ask where you found it? I love the way the gilding has been applied or has worn; and it has those desirable almond shaped and styled pieces of coral in the plate at the top. Congratulations.
A lovely piece indeed, Lynn! Well done.
Dear Angelo, Peter, Thelma and Joost, many thanks for your kind comments. Does anyone know of a book which has a good number of Turkish Ottoman jewelry? Most of the books which reference Turkish Ottoman pieces are pan-ethnic, the specialist books tend to be from the conquered lands like Greece, Bulgaria, Syria... I would love to have one for Turkey proper.
@Thelma, this was a piece acquired from an estate by a random seller on ebay.fr!!
Here is some more information from Waqar Azeem and Nada on Facebook:
Nada said, "The side pendants read Ma Sha'a Allah which is a protective phrase to protect the wearer from envy. The middle pendant is more difficult to read. There is mention on the front of the Prophet as Al Mustafa (the chosen one)... their sons and Fatima ... The reverse is some sort of incantation to God to be merciful on the Day of Judgement and it is dated 1876 A.D."
Waqar said, "The Kirdan is definitely from Safranbolu. The green/blue enamel with incised coral is halmark signatures of Safranbolu workshop and the gilding is typical turkish. This piece has great Byzantine influence and the border style is the one we find in Byzantine pieces... The inscriptions on the back are part of a belief that the blessings can be transferred to the wearer's body." You can see where the gilding on the back of the central pendant is worn from where it touched the clothes. Someone wore this quite a bit but took wonderful care of it.
Hi Lynn, - I don't know a specific book on Turkish Ottoman jewellery, but in contrast to what I earlier told you the following does actually show and discuss (in Turkish, but with English translation) a - too small - number of Turkish Ottoman pieces of the kind you are interested in. I give the title in English: *The Art of Turkish Metalworking*, and the author is Fulya Bodur. Published in 1987 by the Foundation for Service to Turkish Culture. The pieces (jewellery or not) and the captions are all very good indeed - it's just that one would like to see more jewellery. Still, a number of them are included, and the book is also well worthwhile if you like to see the silver work (indeed, that would be the main thing to own the book for ...)! We bought this in Turkey a number of years ago; I don't know how easy it is to obtain. This book is, I think, rare in the West - but I do emphasise its limits, for the jewellery collector. Two general books which certainly relate to your somewhat wider interests as a collector but which also include several examples of Turkish jewellery are both well known and you probably have them. If not I suggest you obtain them, for these you will certainly use fairly often if you have them: one is Saad Al-Jadir, *Arab & Islamic Silver* (1981). His collection is stupendous, and this book presents only a selection of it, but it is useful. There is also a very expensive and hard to obtain much bigger book on his collection which I still have not bought - Alaa drew my attention to it, but I have been too slack in trying to obtain a copy. I would imagine that you most likely have Wolf-Dieter Seiwert's *Jewellery from the Orient*, on the Bir Collection - a very good collection, and the works discussed in the book are fine and well discussed, with several Turkish and many other Ottoman etc pieces well represented. What we really need - and I don't know whether any such thing exists - is a book called *Turkish Jewellery from the Ottoman Period*. I haven't seen any references to any such book, but that may be due purely to my own ignorance. As for the incised coral: yes, that work is typical of Safranbolu, which is the known centre for it, but contrary to what is often assumed the technique was apparently also used elsewhere: a fine example is shown as made by the Adzharians, Batumi district, Caucasus, in the very useful and informative *Museum of the Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR*, p. 108 (Aurora Publishers, Leningrad, 1988; Introduction by Elga Torchinskaya). I do not question that your piece is Turkish, however (and possibly the pieces of coral used in the Caucasian piece came from Safranbolu). The first three books I mention here, and several others, do include examples of Turkish jewellery, and all in all references to Turkish jewellery - across relevant literature - are of course not scarce. But, given the fact that the Turks were very proud and able smiths, and both politically and culturally held enormous sway during the period of their greatest power, one would expect to see FAR more of their jewellery shown in books. And the absence of something equivalent to e.g. Untracht's book on Indian Jewellery is quite remarkable. But perhaps someone can inform us of a book we don't as yet know of ...
Lynn, this is fabulouuuusss!
What a piece!
2 remarks:
Recently i came to the conclusion that what we commonly call "Safranbulu" work (Carved coral work pecifically) was actually much more widespread, possibly stretching from thrace to the Georgian province of batumi (disputed between ottomans and russians until the caucasian wars). It must have been related to the Pontic greek community somehow and likely to the no less significant Armenian one: Investigation to be continued
Furthermore i congratulate Nada for the accurate translation (quite dfficult actually) and would like to stress on the presence of the prophets daughter name: This is of a high importance as "Fatima" is a central personnage in Shi'a islam until today while it is very loosely cited by the Sunnis!
The incantation for protection on the last day (judgment day) is also a very startling occurence to my view which i rarely seen applied on common talismanic jewels from the islamic world.
in any case this jewel has been specifically commissioned (or at least its pendants engraved) for a lady part of an islamic minority group: either Shiaa or Sufi
The owner was of possibly a higher social status but not centrally linked to the Ottoman political center: it shall be considered as coming from an outer/farther border either geographically or ethnographically/religious base.
A sufi or shiaa group from the Balkans or the caucasus could be an answer (Bektashi order for instance)
terrrific find, congrats!
Great information, Alaa. Personally I was particularly gratified to see confirmed that what is so often seen as uniquely Safranbolu work on coral was also done elsewhere. As you could see in my post I made that point, but somewhat tentatively, and I now feel a good deal more relaxed about that issue, as time and again the presence of the technique is seen as definite proof that something must come from that city. Truus will also be happy, for she was bold enough to describe a piece on which such typically carved coral pieces occur as Caucasian in her book (published in 2009). All your other information is of course at least as valuable. Thank you for it. Lynn will be enormously pleased with your analysis. And yes, she made an excellent choice.
Lovely and amazing piece. I will simply add that the round drops with enamel are extremely Bulgarian-looking to me.
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