Kutahya Tiles and Pottery from the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Jerusalem (2 Volumes)

by John Carswell and C.J.F. Dowsett

In AD 1718/19, Armenian potters in Kutahya in north-westernTurkey made a series of pictorial tiles for the restoration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Never used for their original purpose, the majority were instead set in the walls of the Armenian Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem. Painted with Biblical subjects, the original sequence has now been reconstructed, on the basis of an Armenian chronicle written on the lower margins. The chronicle itself contains interesting details concerning the spiritual and temporal fortunes of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem in the early eighteenth century.

This is a two-volume set.

Volume I is comprised of pictorial tiles and other vessels including a catalogue of inscribed and dated Armenian Pottery by John Carswell, and an edition of the Armenian texts with a translation and notes by C.J.F. Dowsett.

Volume II is an historical survey of the Kutahya industrey and a catalogue of the decorative tiles.

Oxford at the Clarendon Press (1972)