CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Ghazaryan, Flora |
|---|---|
| Title | Western Iconographic Influences on Armenian Silver Book Bindings from Ottoman Constantinople (Eighteenth-Nineteenth Centuries) |
| Summary | This thesis is an attempt to analyze art historical objects in a new framework. By its interdisciplinary character the current research tries to show the silver book bindings, which are the central focus of the research, as part of their environment. In this analysis, the silver bindings connect religious history with secular one, showing the intertwined object maker, object commissioner, and object recipient relations. The central focus of this thesis is to show how the sixteenth-seventeenth century Western Christian iconographic influences transferred to the eighteenth-nineteenth century Armenian silver bindings from Istanbul and to explore the overlooked role of Catholic Armenians in this West-East iconographic transfer. The results of this thesis indicate that Western iconographic influences came to the Armenian silver book bindings from the woodcuts of Dutch engraver Christoffel van Sichem via Catholic Armenian printing press founded in Istanbul ca. 1690. In Istanbul, these engravings were copied by an Armenian printer and engraver Gregory of Marzvan in the beginning of the eighteenth century, forming the “Constantinople style:” a unique mixture of European baroque style, Western iconography, and symbols of Apostolic doctrine. These “Constantinople style” engravings together with van Sichem’s originals became the main source of inspiration for silversmiths who authored the silver book bindings analyzed in this thesis․ |
| Supervisor | Krstic Tijana, Szakacs Bela Zsolt |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/ghazaryan_flora.pdf |
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