Το Άγιον Όρος στον 17ο και 18ο αιώνα. Από τους μεταβυζαντινούς στους νεώτερους χρόνους. Πρακτικά. Ι' Διεθνές Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο, Αγιορείτικη Εστία Θεσσαλονίκη2015 , 2022
Church silver and Ottoman Art: From Constantinople to Mount Athos
Although the material in the t... more Church silver and Ottoman Art: From Constantinople to Mount Athos
Although the material in the treasuries and sacristies of Mount Athos is a long way from being published and studied in depth, a few preliminary thoughts can be expressed about the nature of silverwork from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. Broadly speaking, Athonite silverwork is not different from the silverwork of other large monastic centres insomuch as the patrons and the style of art commissioned by them remain the same, both of these being centered on the Ottoman capital and its art.
In the 17th century the continuities with the previous period are clear. In addition to the patronage groups that flourished in the 16th century, such as the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the Ottoman elite, that is to say, the Christian officials in the service of the Ottoman administration and high-ranking prelates, there are now also a considerable number of monks, hieromonks (priest-monks) and prohegumens (ex-abbots), while from the 18th century onwards the collective patronages of guilds and communal bodies make their appearance. This represents a social expansion of the patronage system, whose equivalent can be observed in the art of the Ottoman capital sponsored by Muslim patrons, when the monopoly held by the art of the Ottoman Court and the Sultan’s patronage lost its grip and patrons from the military and administrative hierarchy came to the fore, as well as the sponsors from the ranks of the master-craftsmen (ustas).
The integration of Ottoman art into the monastic environment was a long and varying process. The Gospel-cover (fig.1) is an early example οf coexistence showing Byzantine art juxtaposed to Ottoman art, while on the chalice (fig, 2) Ottoman decoration is fully appropriated and implemented on a typically Christian liturgical object. The Iznik panels and the window glass of the Iviron katholikon (figs 3-2) are probably the oldest case of a large scale intervention in the decorative program of an Athonite monastic church and seems to follow closely the changing modes of patronage in the Ottoman capital, where the Sultan and the grand viziers are not the exclusive patrons but increasingly the lesser viziers and the elite of Constantinople become involved.
A group of benediction crosses in Iviron monastery (figs 7-6) with precious Constantinopolitan mounts represent a good example of 17th-century Ottoman art: an expensive courtly art consumed by the ruling elite and of high local and foreign appeal. This is best seen in the Ottoman diplomatic gifts presented to the Tsar and Russian prelates by Ottoman officials including the patriarch and Greek Christian officials and merchants (figs 5 and 8). The manufacture of some of these goods can be traced to Greek jewellers and workshops in Galata working in an early Ottoman floral baroque style. In the 18th-century, patronage from Constantinople does not appear prominent on Mount Athos, while collective communal and guild donations and local silversmith’s workshops play an increasingly greater role. From the midcentury local production increases, though the standard of workmanship does not compare to that of Constantinopolitan 17th-century works. A typical example is a group of caskets and other works of art that were made mainly by Greek-Vlach companies of goldsmiths that travelled around the Balkans and were the bearers of a uniform, schematic style with an emphasis on the Central European baroque, a style that was implemented up until the 19th century.
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Although the material in the treasuries and sacristies of Mount Athos is a long way from being published and studied in depth, a few preliminary thoughts can be expressed about the nature of silverwork from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. Broadly speaking, Athonite silverwork is not different from the silverwork of other large monastic centres insomuch as the patrons and the style of art commissioned by them remain the same, both of these being centered on the Ottoman capital and its art.
In the 17th century the continuities with the previous period are clear. In addition to the patronage groups that flourished in the 16th century, such as the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the Ottoman elite, that is to say, the Christian officials in the service of the Ottoman administration and high-ranking prelates, there are now also a considerable number of monks, hieromonks (priest-monks) and prohegumens (ex-abbots), while from the 18th century onwards the collective patronages of guilds and communal bodies make their appearance. This represents a social expansion of the patronage system, whose equivalent can be observed in the art of the Ottoman capital sponsored by Muslim patrons, when the monopoly held by the art of the Ottoman Court and the Sultan’s patronage lost its grip and patrons from the military and administrative hierarchy came to the fore, as well as the sponsors from the ranks of the master-craftsmen (ustas).
The integration of Ottoman art into the monastic environment was a long and varying process. The Gospel-cover (fig.1) is an early example οf coexistence showing Byzantine art juxtaposed to Ottoman art, while on the chalice (fig, 2) Ottoman decoration is fully appropriated and implemented on a typically Christian liturgical object. The Iznik panels and the window glass of the Iviron katholikon (figs 3-2) are probably the oldest case of a large scale intervention in the decorative program of an Athonite monastic church and seems to follow closely the changing modes of patronage in the Ottoman capital, where the Sultan and the grand viziers are not the exclusive patrons but increasingly the lesser viziers and the elite of Constantinople become involved.
A group of benediction crosses in Iviron monastery (figs 7-6) with precious Constantinopolitan mounts represent a good example of 17th-century Ottoman art: an expensive courtly art consumed by the ruling elite and of high local and foreign appeal. This is best seen in the Ottoman diplomatic gifts presented to the Tsar and Russian prelates by Ottoman officials including the patriarch and Greek Christian officials and merchants (figs 5 and 8). The manufacture of some of these goods can be traced to Greek jewellers and workshops in Galata working in an early Ottoman floral baroque style. In the 18th-century, patronage from Constantinople does not appear prominent on Mount Athos, while collective communal and guild donations and local silversmith’s workshops play an increasingly greater role. From the midcentury local production increases, though the standard of workmanship does not compare to that of Constantinopolitan 17th-century works. A typical example is a group of caskets and other works of art that were made mainly by Greek-Vlach companies of goldsmiths that travelled around the Balkans and were the bearers of a uniform, schematic style with an emphasis on the Central European baroque, a style that was implemented up until the 19th century.
Despoineta was a famous embroiderer of ecclesiastical veils and vestments working in Constantinople/Istanbul in the late 17th-early 18th century. A skillful artisan with an established urban workshop she became the leading figure of a school of women embroiderers who supplied the Christian world of the Ottoman empire with gold embroidered works throughout the 18th and early 19th century. Her career begins in the 1670s or 1680s and her works are distinguished by the fine execution of the embroidery and the quality of the materials used: silk fabrics and silk threads, gold and silver wire, pearls and sequins, semiprecious and glass stones. She became known to the Greek public in 1953 when Eugenia Vei Chatzidaki published her book on Church Embroideries at the Benaki Museum and listed eight pieces, inscribed and signed by Despoineta, four of them at the Benaki.
In the following years new material has come to light and research has been done on the technical, iconographical, and theological aspect of the embroideries and especially in relation to the ecclesiastical arts of the late Byzantine and succeeding periods. A total of 22 pieces are now assigned to her with four of them uninscribed but attributed to her (see appendix with the list of the embroidered items and the transcription of their inscriptions). In this paper an attempt is made to place these embroideries in the context of their age using information provided by the inscriptions and by recent research on Ottoman Istanbul, including art and the architectural environment, the role of women in the urban social scene and in production, mainly textile production, such as spinning, weaving and embroidery.
The embroiderer signs her works in mainly two ways, the first in chronological order is her nickname Despoineta which is her formal name Despina (meaning lady) + -eta, a diminutive ending of Italian provenance; for better identification she adds the name of her father, “Despoineta of Argyri”. This nickname gave rise to the idea that there was a kind of Italian involvement in her background, which added to the evident Italian influences in her work. But, as we shall see, Despoineta was most probably raised in the multi-confessional and cosmopolitan Galata where nicknames with such endings were long established and did not necessarily mean an Italian origin.
From 1700 on she changed her signature to Despina Argyraia, using her father’s name to create a family name with an ending reminiscent of the great Byzantine aristocratic families of the past, such as Skleraina, Vatatzaina. In that she is part of the trends of her age which is the age of the Phanariots. She follows closely their rise into power becoming a member of their network and adopting their political ideology. Along the invention of an aristocratic lineage, key features of their world were their affection for Constantinople, their devotion to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and their preoccupation with the Greek language and education - although extremely well versed in Turkish and other Eastern and Western languages. In her oldest works Despoineta signs proudly “made in Constantinople” but 20 years later she specifies as a kind of social marker her residence “in Diplokionion”, that is Beşiktaş. Beşiktaş was one of the suburbs of Istanbul on the European shore where the population of Galata inside the walls dispersed in the second half of the 17th century. It became a thriving village with mixed ethnic and social makeup, and many summer houses, kiosks and gardens belonging to the ruling elite. The influence of the environment is evident in Despoineta’s work, in the depiction of the embroidered Lamentation scene on the Epitaphioi, where the ciboria are reminiscent of garden kiosks.
Despite gender stereotypes Despoineta is an extraordinary case that shows the emerging role of women in the craft industry of Constantinople/Istanbul in the late 17th and 18th century. An artisan and a businesswoman running her own urban workshop with several pupils, she is a breakthrough tradition in which only monks or nuns do embroideries of religious vestments. Seen in the framework of her age she is not a sole case, Islamic court records and endowment registers demonstrate that Ottoman women engaged in a variety of economic activities; on the upper-class level they were moneylenders, invested in the real estate market and were owners of workshops, on the middle and lower-class level they provided a variety of services in the cottage and textile workshops in Bursa, Ankara, and Istanbul as weavers, spinners, dyers, and embroiderers. A similar engagement of women in textile industry is noticed in other pre-industrial societies in Western Europe and Venetian Creta.
Despoineta’s social status is most eloquently shown by her clientele, the powerful Christians in the service of the Sultan and the Ottoman administration i.e., the religious establishment and the Christian ruling elite including its peak, the prince of Walachia and his court. Her works now kept at the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest, come from the Cotroceni and Hurezi monasteries which were both princely establishments. Probably the most eloquent sign of Despoineta’s Phanariot identity is shown by the epitrachelion (stole) from Hurezi on which the family of the donor, Constantin Brancoveanu, his wife Maria and their four children, are depicted praying on their knees and richly embroidered with pearls.
Although the material in the treasuries and sacristies of Mount Athos is a long way from being published and studied in depth, a few preliminary thoughts can be expressed about the nature of silverwork from the 16th to the early 18th centuries. Broadly speaking, Athonite silverwork is not different from the silverwork of other large monastic centres insomuch as the patrons and the style of art commissioned by them remain the same, both of these being centered on the Ottoman capital and its art.
In the 17th century the continuities with the previous period are clear. In addition to the patronage groups that flourished in the 16th century, such as the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the Ottoman elite, that is to say, the Christian officials in the service of the Ottoman administration and high-ranking prelates, there are now also a considerable number of monks, hieromonks (priest-monks) and prohegumens (ex-abbots), while from the 18th century onwards the collective patronages of guilds and communal bodies make their appearance. This represents a social expansion of the patronage system, whose equivalent can be observed in the art of the Ottoman capital sponsored by Muslim patrons, when the monopoly held by the art of the Ottoman Court and the Sultan’s patronage lost its grip and patrons from the military and administrative hierarchy came to the fore, as well as the sponsors from the ranks of the master-craftsmen (ustas).
The integration of Ottoman art into the monastic environment was a long and varying process. The Gospel-cover (fig.1) is an early example οf coexistence showing Byzantine art juxtaposed to Ottoman art, while on the chalice (fig, 2) Ottoman decoration is fully appropriated and implemented on a typically Christian liturgical object. The Iznik panels and the window glass of the Iviron katholikon (figs 3-2) are probably the oldest case of a large scale intervention in the decorative program of an Athonite monastic church and seems to follow closely the changing modes of patronage in the Ottoman capital, where the Sultan and the grand viziers are not the exclusive patrons but increasingly the lesser viziers and the elite of Constantinople become involved.
A group of benediction crosses in Iviron monastery (figs 7-6) with precious Constantinopolitan mounts represent a good example of 17th-century Ottoman art: an expensive courtly art consumed by the ruling elite and of high local and foreign appeal. This is best seen in the Ottoman diplomatic gifts presented to the Tsar and Russian prelates by Ottoman officials including the patriarch and Greek Christian officials and merchants (figs 5 and 8). The manufacture of some of these goods can be traced to Greek jewellers and workshops in Galata working in an early Ottoman floral baroque style. In the 18th-century, patronage from Constantinople does not appear prominent on Mount Athos, while collective communal and guild donations and local silversmith’s workshops play an increasingly greater role. From the midcentury local production increases, though the standard of workmanship does not compare to that of Constantinopolitan 17th-century works. A typical example is a group of caskets and other works of art that were made mainly by Greek-Vlach companies of goldsmiths that travelled around the Balkans and were the bearers of a uniform, schematic style with an emphasis on the Central European baroque, a style that was implemented up until the 19th century.
Despoineta was a famous embroiderer of ecclesiastical veils and vestments working in Constantinople/Istanbul in the late 17th-early 18th century. A skillful artisan with an established urban workshop she became the leading figure of a school of women embroiderers who supplied the Christian world of the Ottoman empire with gold embroidered works throughout the 18th and early 19th century. Her career begins in the 1670s or 1680s and her works are distinguished by the fine execution of the embroidery and the quality of the materials used: silk fabrics and silk threads, gold and silver wire, pearls and sequins, semiprecious and glass stones. She became known to the Greek public in 1953 when Eugenia Vei Chatzidaki published her book on Church Embroideries at the Benaki Museum and listed eight pieces, inscribed and signed by Despoineta, four of them at the Benaki.
In the following years new material has come to light and research has been done on the technical, iconographical, and theological aspect of the embroideries and especially in relation to the ecclesiastical arts of the late Byzantine and succeeding periods. A total of 22 pieces are now assigned to her with four of them uninscribed but attributed to her (see appendix with the list of the embroidered items and the transcription of their inscriptions). In this paper an attempt is made to place these embroideries in the context of their age using information provided by the inscriptions and by recent research on Ottoman Istanbul, including art and the architectural environment, the role of women in the urban social scene and in production, mainly textile production, such as spinning, weaving and embroidery.
The embroiderer signs her works in mainly two ways, the first in chronological order is her nickname Despoineta which is her formal name Despina (meaning lady) + -eta, a diminutive ending of Italian provenance; for better identification she adds the name of her father, “Despoineta of Argyri”. This nickname gave rise to the idea that there was a kind of Italian involvement in her background, which added to the evident Italian influences in her work. But, as we shall see, Despoineta was most probably raised in the multi-confessional and cosmopolitan Galata where nicknames with such endings were long established and did not necessarily mean an Italian origin.
From 1700 on she changed her signature to Despina Argyraia, using her father’s name to create a family name with an ending reminiscent of the great Byzantine aristocratic families of the past, such as Skleraina, Vatatzaina. In that she is part of the trends of her age which is the age of the Phanariots. She follows closely their rise into power becoming a member of their network and adopting their political ideology. Along the invention of an aristocratic lineage, key features of their world were their affection for Constantinople, their devotion to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and their preoccupation with the Greek language and education - although extremely well versed in Turkish and other Eastern and Western languages. In her oldest works Despoineta signs proudly “made in Constantinople” but 20 years later she specifies as a kind of social marker her residence “in Diplokionion”, that is Beşiktaş. Beşiktaş was one of the suburbs of Istanbul on the European shore where the population of Galata inside the walls dispersed in the second half of the 17th century. It became a thriving village with mixed ethnic and social makeup, and many summer houses, kiosks and gardens belonging to the ruling elite. The influence of the environment is evident in Despoineta’s work, in the depiction of the embroidered Lamentation scene on the Epitaphioi, where the ciboria are reminiscent of garden kiosks.
Despite gender stereotypes Despoineta is an extraordinary case that shows the emerging role of women in the craft industry of Constantinople/Istanbul in the late 17th and 18th century. An artisan and a businesswoman running her own urban workshop with several pupils, she is a breakthrough tradition in which only monks or nuns do embroideries of religious vestments. Seen in the framework of her age she is not a sole case, Islamic court records and endowment registers demonstrate that Ottoman women engaged in a variety of economic activities; on the upper-class level they were moneylenders, invested in the real estate market and were owners of workshops, on the middle and lower-class level they provided a variety of services in the cottage and textile workshops in Bursa, Ankara, and Istanbul as weavers, spinners, dyers, and embroiderers. A similar engagement of women in textile industry is noticed in other pre-industrial societies in Western Europe and Venetian Creta.
Despoineta’s social status is most eloquently shown by her clientele, the powerful Christians in the service of the Sultan and the Ottoman administration i.e., the religious establishment and the Christian ruling elite including its peak, the prince of Walachia and his court. Her works now kept at the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest, come from the Cotroceni and Hurezi monasteries which were both princely establishments. Probably the most eloquent sign of Despoineta’s Phanariot identity is shown by the epitrachelion (stole) from Hurezi on which the family of the donor, Constantin Brancoveanu, his wife Maria and their four children, are depicted praying on their knees and richly embroidered with pearls.
Textiles offer a rich opportunity to explore the projection of identity, both within and between social and cultural groups. A pertinent arena for such an exploration is the intercultural region of the Mediterranean. This workshop will bring together a group of junior and senior scholars to investigate and elucidate the role of textiles in the cultures of the Medieval and early Modern Mediterranean, and its periphery, with a focus on specific case studies. Our investigation will analyze textiles as tools for projecting identity within specific contexts, whether cross-cultural or not. Institutionalized practices of textile use and reuse, written and unwritten rules governing ceremonial use, the departure from standard practices, the active reception of imports and their interpretation will form the major topics examined by the participating scholars. Our directed investigation will seek to identity parallels and points of contact between the use of textiles in various political entities, and among social groups and cultures.
Program
3 June 2016
Venue: Museum of Islamic Art, 22 Ag. Asomaton & 12 Dipylou St., Athens
Welcoming remarks
9:30 John Bennet, British School at Athens
9:40 Mina Moraitou, Benaki Museum
Opening remarks
9:50 Nikolaos Vryzidis, British School at Athens
1. Medieval Islamic textiles in the Eastern Mediterranean
10:00 Alison Ohta, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland: Chair
10:10 Scott Redford, SOAS-University of London: ‘Seljuk silks, standards and emblems’
10:30 Marielle Martiniani-Reber, Musées d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève: ‘The relationship between Islamic and Byzantine textiles during the Middle Byzantine period’
10: 50 Maria Sardi, SOAS-University of London: ‘Towards a standardization of Mamluk aesthetic: influences and identity as reflected on textiles’
11:10 Discussion
11:30 Coffee break
2. Western Mediterranean cross-cultural encounters
11:40 Mina Moraitou, Benaki Museum: Chair
11: 50 Ana Cabrera, Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas & Laura Rodríguez Peinado, Universidad Complutense de Madrid: ‘Medieval Textiles from the Iberian Peninsula: state of the art and new approaches of study’
12:20 Vera-Simone Schulz, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz: ‘Entangled Identities: Textiles and the Art and Architecture of the Italian Peninsula in a Mediterranean Perspective’
12:40 Discussion
13:00 Lunch break
3. The multi-cultural Ottoman Empire
14:00 Helen Philon, Independent scholar: Chair
14:10 Anna Ballian, Benaki Museum (Emerita): ‘Chios silks’
14:30 Amanda Philips, University of Virginia: ‘Interventions in technology and fashion: the case of Ottoman compound weaves’
14:50 Elena Papastavrou, Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports: ‘Greek-Orthodox cultural identity as reflected on Constantinopolitan Church Embroidery’
15:10 Discussion
15:30 Coffee break
4. Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christian textiles
15:40 Warren Woodfin, City University of New York: Chair
15:50 Dickran Kouymjian, California State University-Fresno (Emeritus): ‘Armenian Altar Curtains: Repository of Tradition and Innovation’
16:10 Nikolaos Vryzidis, British School at Athens: ‘Animal motifs on Asian silks used by the Greek Church: an afterlife of Byzantine iconography?’
16: 30 Jacopo Gnisci, Independent scholar: ‘Towards a History of Ecclesiastical Dress in Early Solomonic Ethiopia’
16:50 Discussion
General discussion and concluding remarks
17:10 Nikolaos Vryzidis, British School at Athens
End
4 June 2016
Study day (attendance by invitation only)
10:00-13:00 Handling session (Benaki Museum Peiraios annex), hosted by Mina Moraitou
15:00 Museum visit (Benaki Museum main building), hosted by Anastasia Drandaki
End