\'Armenian Patrons for Chinese Commodities. Trade Networks and Cultural Exchange across Asia\' 2016

Art, Trade and Culture in the Islamic World and Beyond From the Fatimids to the Mughals

Studies Presented to Doris Behrens-Abouseif

Edited by Alison Ohta, J.M. Rogers and Rosalind Wade Haddon

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Figure 1. Ewer, copper, decorated in painted enamels, H.28cm, Canton (Guangzhou), China, 1776. Kalfayan Collection.

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A taste for Chinese design was manifested in Iranian objects commissioned by Armenian traders in seventeenth-century Isfahan. A century later, their scions dispersed along trade routes and many settled in India. Between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century these Indian Armenians placed orders for ‘Chinese export wares’ featuring signs of their Armenian ethnicity. Living within European cultural horizons, they adapted to western modes and sometimes used Latin monograms. Dignitaries of the Armenian millet under the Ottoman sultan also indulged in Chinese luxuries, which reflect the destinies of Armenian communities both in their Caucasian homeland and in diaspora.

or amount of decoration, and this limited art-historical interest may explain the scarcity of references in the scholarly record. The earliest dated items are executed in enamel-painted copper and include a ewer in the Kalfayan collection and a tray in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), parts of the same commission, which can be connected with a patron known from historical records.4 They were made, as almost identical inscriptions inform us, ‘for the Armenian Prince Melik Hovsep in the year of our Lord, the Saviour, 1776’ (melik for prince, from the Arabic malik).5 The date is given in Arabic numerals and is in the Gregorian rather than the Armenian calendar. The shape of the ewer is South Asian, drawing from parallels in Mughal metalwork. Similar Chinese export examples in enamelled copper are also known.6 The most unusual element is the spout, which features a trumpet lip and individually fashioned leaves, attached to its shaft and enamelled alongside the rest of the vessel’s surface; apparently, it is a replacement. [Figure 1] The tray was brought from Isfahan by Major-General Sir Robert J. Murdoch Smith (1835–1900) and was originally thought to have been of Iranian manufacture.7 Its impressive size (102 by 65cm) bears witness to the opulence of the commission, which must have included other items. The decoration is in the famille rose palette developed in early eighteenth-century China, with added gilding and features scrolls, plain or with flower heads, a variety of realistically depicted flowers, and a spattering of ornamental devices which speak of Chinese provenance: ruyi-lappets, stylised bands, lotus leaves, and peony flowers. They belong to the standard vocabulary of late eighteenthcentury Canton (Guangzhou) enamelled metalwork. This extravagant commission was intended for a prince of the Beglarian Armenian dynastic house, which emerged in the early seventeenth century and ruled the Gulistan province of Karabakh. Although the object has been associated with Hovsep, the son of Abov II, who ruled between 1728 and 1775,8 it could also be connected with his son, Beglar II Aga Hovsep, who ruled briefly between 1775 and 1776, the year of the commission.9 The patron’s princely status and the period of relative peace under the suzerainty of Karim Khan Zand (r.1750–1779) justify the lavish expenditure.10 But along

This article focuses on a group of artefacts evidently commissioned for Armenian clients but manufactured in China, therefore falling within the category of so-called ‘Chinese export wares’.1 Two items of enamel-painted copper as well as about 45 items of porcelain, dated either by inscription or through stylistic analysis between the last quarter of the eighteenth and the second quarter of the nineteenth century, have so far been identified as belonging to this group. What makes these artefacts distinct are the inscriptions, monograms, initials, symbols, or coats of arms painted on them that betray the Armenian ethnicity of their patrons. None of these signs appear to have been added later and the objects were not decorated outside China. They were ordered by Armenians with the means to commission either individual objects, or entire sets, through a well-developed communication and trade network. This network saw the use of specially ordered shapes and decorative motifs on various media, predominantly the most exotic of China’s products, porcelain.2 Forming a distinct group among Chinese export wares are items shaped or decorated to suit the needs, tastes, and identities of particular patrons. Some of these ‘personalised’ wares simply carry inscriptions or initials denoting ownership but they are often decorated with insignia of royal and noble families, clerics, corporations, towns, or countries (armorial wares).3 The group of Chinese items associated with Armenian patrons is relatively small and includes inscribed, monogrammed, and armorial (or pseudo-armorial) examples. Few of them stand out in terms of size, quality of manufacture, 177

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of rich New Julfa merchants, each headed by a khoja (master or lord), accumulated immense wealth and consumed luxurious objects either made in Isfahan or ordered abroad. In 1628 they contributed 80 per cent of the Crown’s annual budget.15 Their trade network extended from the North Sea to China, with representatives known as ‘factors’, who were connected to each other through family or personal ties, operating in every major trading centre.16

which routes did the ewer and tray travel to reach the palace in Gulistan? The principalities of Karabakh or khamsa (five) melikdoms were fully or quasi-independent feudal entities ruled by hereditary Armenian princes. They emerged in the fourteenth century during the Mongol period. In later years they either sided with the Iranian shah opposite the Ottomans or claimed their independence, while somehow not quite managing to unite into an Armenian state. The melikdoms were incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1806 and were eventually abolished in 1822.11 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the rulers of melikdoms were able to commission exclusive commodities through an extensive Armenian trade network which supported them, both politically and financially.12 This network had its centre in Isfahan, in the neighbourhood of New Julfa, created by Shah Abbas I (r.1588–1629) in the early seventeenth century. The settlement of this area with a Christian Armenian population deported from Julfa was meant to concentrate trade in the Safavids’ new capital. The main merchandise was raw silk from farms tended by Armenians, again deported between 1604 and 1605. This production satisfied the increased demand for raw silk in Europe which had begun in the sixteenth century.13 The Armenians also acted as bankers to the shah and supplied him with silver bullion, an arrangement that proved highly beneficial to them.14 Approximately 20 families

The wealthy, cosmopolitan Armenians at the heart of this system must have been familiar with Chinese porcelain as they had been involved in Portuguese trade networks since the sixteenth century, even before their deportation from Julfa.17 Safavid-period Iranian stonepaste wares decorated in underglaze cobalt blue with Armenian monograms document this familiarity. A series of dishes bear radiating aster flowers and the monogram ܼ (NZT) in the centre, for Ü[³]½[³ñ¿]à (N[a]z[are]t). [Figure 2] The decoration is a direct reference to widely exported Kangxi-period (1662–1722) Chinese porcelains. The monogram could be associated with several known individuals named Nazaret, all merchants. 18 Alternatively, it may be connected with a descendant of the important khoja Nazar of New Julfa, a mayor (kalantar) of the settlement.19 The V&A holds three further Iranian stonepaste examples with a different, hard-to-decipher Armenian monogram: a ewer, a dish, and a truncated bottle.20 The

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Dish, glazed stonepaste, decorated in cobalt blue, D.22.5 cm,

Dish (detail), glazed porcelain, decorated in cobalt blue, D.24.4 cm,

Iran, circa 1700. V&A inv. no.2715-1876. © Victoria and Albert

Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, late eighteenth century.

Museum, London.

Kalfayan Collection.

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Figure 4. Tombstone (detail) of Shahamir Shahamirian (1723–1797), carved stone, India, Madras (Chennai), circa 1797. Armenian Church, Chennai, India. Image courtesy of Prakriti Foundation, 2014.

many to disperse to trading towns in Russia and Europe, with the greatest number going to India.23

monogram on the bottle has been reversed, perhaps betraying the unfamiliarity of the potter with the Armenian alphabet. These ceramics have been associated by Yolande Crowe with paron (baron) Safraz (d.1728), son of khoja Minas Tarxanian. Safraz was another New Julfa merchant and head of a family trading firm between 1715 and 1727.21

The Armenian-commissioned Chinese porcelains that will be examined next date from this period of worldwide diaspora. They were made in the town of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, in southeast China and were decorated with enamels in the trade outpost of Canton. A late eighteenth-century dish in the Kalfayan collection is decorated in cobalt blue with a shield containing the Armenian letters ØØÚ (MMH) and probably the date 1788. Two haloed fish-tailed angels or winged mermaids (‘mer-angels’?) underneath a fluted device surmounted by a cross are positioned either side of the shield and below it are represented a pair of scales, a yard measure, a pair of scissors, an inkwell, a quill, and a pyramidal arrangement with six small weights, used for precious stones.24 [Figure 3] All these objects represented the merchant’s profession and were used by a prominent Armenian merchant family, originating from Julfa and deported to New Julfa in 1604.25 In an effort to adapt to the decline of the New Julfa trade networks and the intensification of maritime over terrestrial trade,26 the head of the family, known as khoja Sultan David (1696/7–1754), emigrated to Madras (Chennai), India,

The shapes and decoration of these Safavid examples bear testimony to the taste for Chinese porcelains, but also to the ability of Iranian potters to replicate them. It was easy for Armenian patrons wishing to personalise their ceramics to have monograms added on locally produced wares. The quality of these wares may be the reason why items of Chinese porcelain with inscriptions, monograms, or initials corresponding to their patrons do not appear to have been made before the late eighteenth century. They could be produced with a smaller cost and less effort closer to home. The destinies of the Armenian merchants of New Julfa began to shift from the 1640s onwards and by the late seventeenth century the era of their greatest power had come to an end.22 The Afghan invasion of Iran in 1722 and Nadir Shah’s (r.1736–1747) extortionist campaigns in 1746–1747 prompted 179

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Shahamirian, Sultan David’s son, was one of the community’s richest members and a fervent patriot. He was instrumental in setting up a printing press where the first Armenian newspaper, Azdarar (Intelligencer), was published between 1794 and 1796.37 It is highly likely that the porcelain dish in the Kalfayan collection was part of a set commissioned by Shahamirian or another member of the family resident in Madras.38

sometime between 1723 and 1740.27 His tombstone was recovered from the ballast of a shipwreck in the South China Sea and is kept in the National Museum of the Philippines, Manila.28 The tombstone [Figure 4] and a portrait of Sultan David’s eldest son Shahamir Shahamirian (1723–1797) are in the Armenian Church of Madras and feature identical symbols.29 Since the construction of Fort Saint George in 1644, Madras had grown into a major station in the Honourable (English) East India Company trade.30 Armenians had been present in the area since the fifteenth or early sixteenth century and New Julfa traders started moving into town by 1666.31 In 1688 the traders and the Company concluded an agreement giving initiatives to the former to settle in the latter’s stations, provided they preferred Company ships for the transport of their goods.32 In 1694, 200 Armenians were mentioned as either permanently settled or annually sailing past Madras and by 1711 they had become ‘numerous and opulent’.33 The port developed into a ‘peripheral node’ of the New Julfa trade network.34 The first Armenian church was built in 1712 and was replaced by another in 1772.35 By the second half of the eighteenth century the Coromandel Coast port had developed into an administrative and military centre of the British in India with its own army and eminent Armenians had played a significant role in this transformation.36 Shahamir

The fluted device crowning the shield and the ‘mer-angel’ supporters on the Kalfayan collection dish appear on other Chinese export porcelain items. On a cup formerly in the Mottahedeh collection, a shield encloses the letters ÚÚ (YY) and a panel below bears the date 1244 of the Armenian era (4 September 1794–3 September 1795). According to David Howard and John Ayers, ‘the service was made for a senior member of the clergy of the Armenian Church’, presumably because of the cross on top; comparison is made with a bowl in the Musée Arménien de France,39 which has different initials, probably îð/úÚ/Þ (TR/OY/S), but the same date (1795), the same supporters, and the same crowning device. Finally, a similar surround is found on two sets of famille rose tea cups and saucers in the Kalfayan collection, around a crowned coat of arms inscribed in Armenian ‘For the Kings of Armenia. Date: 1244’ (the date corresponding to 1795),40 a surprising decoration perhaps connected with the nation-building projects advocated by some Armenian intellectuals in Madras, among whom was Shahamirian.41 [Figure 5] Mermen and mermaids are frequently encountered as supporters in European heraldry, for example in the arms of the kingdom of Naples and in the arms of towns in England, the Netherlands, and Belgium. They are unsurprisingly associated with trade, the sea, or maritime professions. A Chinese export porcelain dish in the Leo and Doris Hodroff Collection at Winterthur dating from around 1775 once formed part of a dinner service destined for the Fishmongers’ Company, one of the guilds of London; the supporters are a merman and a mermaid, evoking the guild’s source of income.42 Winged putti emerging from elaborate foliage and resembling sea creatures appear on armorial Chinese export porcelain made for the Portuguese market, for example on a series of commissions for Dom Luís Peregrino de Ataíde (1700–1758), tenth Count of Atuguia and sixth viceroy of Brazil, which have a canopy resembling the fluted device crowning the Armenian armorials.43 However, the closest morphological parallel to the surrounds on the Kalfayan, ex-Mottahedeh, and Musée Arménien de France examples appears in an Indian context. Arms adopted by the nawabs of Awadh from the first half of the nineteenth century featured angels emerging from the mouths of fish as

Figure 5. Saucer (detail), glazed porcelain, decorated in painted enamels, D.12.5cm, Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, 1795. Kalfayan Collection.

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Figure 6. Cup and saucer, silver, decorated in repoussé, chasing, and painted enamels, saucer D.15cm, India (?), late eighteenth century. © Christie’s Images Limited, 2016.

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supporters, surmounted by a parasol. This Indian symbol of royalty is more comparable to the Armenian crown device than the Portuguese-market canopy. European-style coats of arms were first used in Awadh by nawab Ghazi ud-din Haider (r.1814 –1827); his version featured fish without angels or parasol. The designer responsible for Ghazi ud-din Haider’s armorials and regalia was Robert Home (1752–1837), a Briton who is likely to have produced the design around 1819.44 By the time of nawab Wajid Ali Shah (r.1847–1856), the fish had metamorphosed into ‘mer-angels’, as seen on the Jal Pari (Mermaid Gateway), at the Qaisar Bagh complex in Lucknow as well as examples of decorative art;45 his coat of arms was very close to the Armenian examples. It is intriguing that Robert Home’s first stop in India was Madras, where he landed in January 1791 and worked intermittently until May 1795.46 Could it be that Home adapted the ‘mer-angel’ and parasol armorial hybrid from Portuguese originals for

Figure 7. Tureen, glazed porcelain, decorated in cobalt blue, L.33.5cm, Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, circa 1795. Kalfayan Collection.

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porcelain bowl, as well as the silver ones, were ordered for Ghoukas by the Madras Armenian community, which could also have commissioned the Beglarian enamels through their East India Company connections.

Armenian clients during his Madras stay and then his idea was reused in Awadh royal imagery during or after his employment in Lucknow from 1814 to 1825? Whatever the answer, ‘mer-angel’-surrounded and parasol-crowned armorials were commissioned by wealthy members of the Armenian diaspora in India as early as 1795.

The last group of porcelains differs from the ones so far examined in two ways: none of the pieces can be linked to any historical personality or family and their shapes (tureens, dishes, warming dishes, teapots, milk jugs, and sugar bowls, as well as cups and saucers) are not exclusively open, like the cups, saucers, and dishes examined so far. Their decoration, simple and restrained in the neoclassical style, includes only inscriptions with names and initials in either Armenian or Latin letters. The Armenian letters ê¶ (SG) appear within heart-shaped medallions on a tureen and a dish in the Kalfayan collection, decorated in underglaze blue and dating from around 1780.53 [Figure 7] A teapot, a lidded sugar bowl, and a milk jug in the museum of the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour (‘Vank Cathedral’) in New Julfa, Isfahan, are dated 1788 in inscriptions and feature the letters îºð/¶:ä/ä (TYR/GP/P) within heart-shaped medallions formed by flower garlands and crowned by rayed Latin crosses pattées. [Figure 8] A single dish in the same museum features the letters ²ê (AS) within another flowery heart-shaped medallion above a blue vase with

Furthermore, the secular nature of all the above-listed insignia and the display of a trader’s attributes in the blue-and-white dish from the Kalfayan collection contradict a clerical connection. It is more plausible that the cross over the parasol served as a signifier of religious and ethnic identity.47 Nevertheless, there is a cup in the Musée Arménien de France which can be safely associated with a known patriarch (catholicos) of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It is decorated with a coat of arms crowned by an Armenian-style belfry. It is surrounded by two putti seemingly half-submerged in a baptismal font. Two anthropomorphic angels act as supporters and step on an eagle with outstretched wings.48 This device is different from the previous, angel-supported examples. It appears four times in repoussé around the walls of two silver bowls (one with accompanying saucer) with two feline-shaped handles which appeared in the London art market. [Figure 6] The monogram within the coat of arms consists of the letters ÔÎê / ÎÂÎ (GhKS / KThK) separated by a bishop’s crozier with a cross on top; they are abbreviated from Ô[àÆ]Î[²] ê / Կ[²]Â[àÔô]Î[àê] (Gh[ou]k[a]s K[a]th[oghi]k[os]). The eagle is the emblem of the Armenian Catholicate. Both the porcelain cup and the silver bowl were commissioned for the Catholicos Ghoukas I Karnetsi (1722–1799). Born in Karin, present-day Erzurum in Anatolia, Ghoukas became bishop of this town before rising to the highest rank in the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1780 and moving to Etchmiadzin (Vagharshapat), also within the Ottoman Empire.49 He was a patron of the arts and during his tenure the Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin was decorated with wall paintings by Hovnatan Hovnatanian (approximately 1730–1801), member of a prominent family of Armenian painters.50 Ghoukas was the head of the Armenian community, or millet, in the Ottoman Empire. He was responsible for fellow Armenians in both spiritual and secular domains. The status of his countrymen within the Empire varied at that time, but the more affluent and sophisticated among them were able to commission exotic trinkets and indulge in extravagant fashions, for example Chinese export art.51 Furthermore, for most of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman trade in imported luxury goods was controlled by wealthy Armenians in Constantinople and other cities, and Chinese porcelain was particularly important among these goods.52 It is also possible that the

Figure 8. Teapot (detail), glazed porcelain, decorated in painted enamels, Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, 1788. Museum, Cathedral of the Holy Saviour, New Julfa, Isfahan, Iran. Image by George Manginis.

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of porcelains featuring a monogram of two intertwined Latin alphabet characters (AA). Around the monogram in all these items appears the inscription ²ìºî £ Ú²ðàÊÂƺ²Ü (AVET.YAROXT’IAN) which has been translated as ‘good news / annunciation’.60 This is indeed the meaning of the word avet[um]. However, the words can also be read as the personal name Avet[ik] Yarokhtiyan.61 The inscription also includes the Gregorian calendar date 1794, the same as in the Simonian set. The items belonged to a tea set comprising (as it survived in 1967) a teapot and lid, a helmet-shaped jug, a lidded sugar bowl, a dish, eight tea cups and saucers, and an extra saucer. It was first recorded in the collection of Margaret Thérèse Clayton and was dispersed through a series of auctions.62 The following items from the set have been located so far: the teapot [Figure 10], the dish, and a tea cup with saucer in the Kalfayan collection;63 another tea cup and saucer formerly in the Mottahedeh collection;64 a saucer at the V&A;65 a tea cup from the Ethel (Mrs Julius) Liebman and Arthur L. Liebman Porcelain Collection, in the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison;66 and a sugar bowl, formerly in the Peter H.B. Frelinghuysen Jr. collection, exhibited in 1979–1980 in the Newark Museum and thence sold at auction.67 The items with the AA monogram feature shapes corresponding to European custom. This observation, alongside the Latin alphabet monogram, could suggest that the tea set was commissioned by a member of one of the several diasporic communities resident in a late eighteenth-century European state.68 Alternatively, it could have been ordered by members of the Anglicised community of Armenians in India and could thus be connected with the previously discussed heraldic items. Both hypotheses could also hold true for the monogrammed porcelain tureen, flatware, and tea wares, pieces better suited for dining and enjoying tea à la française rather than feasting in the Middle Eastern way.

flowers and can be dated stylistically to the early nineteenth century. [Figure 9] The letters ²Ú² (AYA) accompany the date 1833 on a blue-and-gold decorated warming dish in the Kalfayan collection.54 An identical warming dish was formerly in the Mottahedeh collection.55 An earlier dish features a blue border and the letters Ø:Ú: (M.H.) in gold.56 A tea cup and a saucer are decorated with ermine-backed drapery surrounding a shield with the letters Գê (GS);57 a similar device appears around the letters Æê (IS) on a bowl.58 The last four porcelains are in the Kalfayan collection and date from around 1800. These items obviously formed part of dinner sets and the letters are the initials of their owners, who cannot be identified without further evidence. A cup which appeared in the London art market is unusual in featuring a monogram of three Latin alphabet characters, GGS, surrounded by an Armenian inscription Գ²öðºÈ ԳºàðԳ îð êÆØàܺ²Ü (GAP’REL GEORG TR SIMONEAN), containing the name Gabriel Gevorg Simonian, and the Gregorian calendar date 1794 within a starburst motif in blue and gold.59 Two further cups with matching saucers from the same set are preserved in the museum at the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour. The decoration and the combination of a monogram in Latin alphabet characters with a fully spelled name in Armenian connect these items with a group

From the time of their relocation to Iran in the early seventeenth century the Armenian traders of New Julfa commissioned locally produced ceramic objects in the Chinese style. A century later, the connections of their scions possibly furnished an enamel ware commission for a prince of Gulistan. By then, many of these Isfahan merchants had dispersed along their long-established trade routes and had settled in India. These diaspora Armenians, a ‘stateless social formation’ living within European cultural horizons,69 gradually adapted their symbols and everyday habits to western modes and even used Latin alphabet monograms. Across Asia, the Armenian millet under the Ottoman sultan was headed by an enlightened cleric indulging in ‘personalised’ Chinese porcelains, luxury goods offering a glimpse into early modern Armenian history through a distinctly cosmopolitan lens.

Figure 9. Dish (detail), glazed porcelain, decorated in painted enamels, Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, early nineteenth century. Museum, Cathedral of the Holy Saviour, New Julfa, Isfahan, Iran. Image by George Manginis.

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Figure 10. Teapot, glazed porcelain, decorated in painted enamels, L.24.5cm, Jingdezhen and Canton (Guangzhou), China, 1794. Kalfayan Collection.

Notes 1. The first draft of this text was presented as a lecture to the Islamic Art Circle at SOAS, University of London on 23 April 2014, introduced by Doris Behrens-Abouseif, to whom the current article is cordially dedicated. I wish to express my gratitude to Roupen Kalfayan, who first drew my attention to the group of artefacts discussed herein and was always available to discuss even the wildest ideas, and also to Moya Carey, Heather Elgood, Babis Floros, Melanie Gibson, Christiane Gruber, Luisa Mengoni, Mina Moraitou, Chiara de Nicolais, J.M. Rogers, Maria Sardi, Dimitris Savvatis, Farida Seddon, Kunal Shah, Barbara Schwepcke, Nikolaos Vryzidis, and Rosalind Wade Haddon.

5. Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects of the Kalfayan Family Cultural Heritage, Yerevan, 2013, p.72.

2. Fuchs III, R. W., and Howard, D. S., Made in China. Export Porcelain from the Leo and Doris Hodroff Collection at Winterthur, Winterthur, 2005, pp.25–32. On wares decorated outside China, see Kerr, R., and Mengoni, L. E., Chinese Export Ceramics, London, 2011, pp.94–101.

9.

3. Kerr, R., and Mengoni, L.E., Chinese Export Ceramics, pp.39–57.

11. Hewsen, R. H., ‘The Meliks of Eastern Armenia: A Preliminary Study’, Revue des Études Arméniennes N.S. IX, 1972, pp.297–308.

6. Delvaux, J.-M., Extrême-Orient, vente aux enchères publiques, Paris, 12 juin 2014, lots 47 and 48. 7. South Kensington Museum, Catalogue of Persian objects in the South Kensington Museum, London, 1876, p.35. On Murdoch Smith’s purchases, see Kerr, R., and Mengoni, L.E., Chinese Export Ceramics, pp.105–07. 8. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.214; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, p.72. Toumannof, C., Les dynasties de la Caucasie chrétienne de l’Antiquité jusqu’au XIXe siècle: Tables généalogiques et chronologiques, Rome, 1990, pp.240, 529–30.

10. Bournoutian, G. A., A History of the Armenian People Volume II. 1500 A.D. to the Present, Costa Mesa, 1994, p.38.

4. The ewer appears in Christie’s, Chinese Export Porcelain and Works of Art, London, 21 March 1988, lot 25; Chondrogiannēs, S. (ed.), Opseis Armenikēs Technēs apo tē Syllogē Kalfagian, Athens, 2010, pp.214–15; and Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, Newsletter of the Oriental Ceramic Society 20, 2012, pp.15–16. The tray, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. no. 645-1876, is discussed in Murdoch Smith, Major R., Persian Art, New York, 1877, p.44.

12. Bournoutian, G. A., A History of the Armenian People, p.33. 13. Ghougassian, V. S., ‘Wealthy Merchants and Factors. The Legacy of Julfa’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique au début de l’ère moderne, Paris, 2007, pp.54–55. 14. Baghdiantz-McCabe, I., ‘Caucasian Elites and Early Modern State-building in Safavid Iran’, in Chaudhury, S., and

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Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, p.92.

30. Farrington, A., Trading Places. The East India Company and Asia 1600–1834, London, 2002, p.64.

15. Tokatlian, A., Kalantars. Les Seigneurs Arméniens dans la Perse Safavide, Paris, 2009, pp.32–46.

31. Seth, M. J., Armenians in India, pp. 579–580, 604; Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, p.47; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p.51.

16. Ferrier, R. W., ‘The Armenians and the East India Company in Persia in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries’, The Economic History Review 26.1, 1973, pp.38–41; Bournoutian, G. A., A History of the Armenian People, pp.29–33; Aghassian, M., and Kévonian, K., ‘The Armenian merchant network: overall autonomy and local integration’, in Chaudhury, S., and Morineau, M. (eds.), Merchants, Companies and Trade. Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era, Cambridge, 1999, pp.75–76; Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State: Armenian Merchants, the English East India Company, and the High Court of Admiralty in London, 1748–1752’, Diaspora 13.1, 2004, pp.40–51; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2011.

32. Ferrier, R. W., ‘The Armenians and the East India Company’, pp.49–51; Aghassian, M., and Kévonian, K., ‘The Armenian merchant network’, p.89; Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, pp.49–50; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p.51. 33. Bhattacharya, B., ‘Armenian European Relationship in India, 1500–1800: No Armenian Foundation for European Empire?’, Journal of the Economic & Social History of the Orient 48.2, 2005, pp.301–02. 34. Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, p.84. 35. Seth, M. J., Armenians in India, p.580; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p.51.

17. Teles e Cunha, J., ‘Armenian Merchants in Portuguese Trade Networks in the Western Indian Ocean in the Early Modern Age’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, pp.197–252.

36. Farrington, A., Trading Places, p.100; Bhattacharya, B., ‘Armenian European Relationship in India’, pp.316–18. 37. Seth, M. J., Armenians in India, pp.597–601; Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, p.39; Bhattacharya, B., ‘Armenian European Relationship in India’, p.303; Hacikyan, A. (ed.), The Heritage of Armenian Literature. From the Oral Tradition to the Golden Age. Volume III. From the Eighteenth Century to Modern Times, Detroit, 2005, pp.160–61; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, p.51.

18. Crowe, Y., Persia and China; Safavid Blue and White Ceramics in the Victoria & Albert Museum 1501­–1738, Geneva, 2002, p.226. 19. Crowe, Y., Persia and China, p.240; Ghougassian, V. S., ‘Wealthy Merchants and Factors’, p.56; Haghnazarian, A., ‘The Architecture of New Julfa’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, p.84; Tokatlian, A., Kalantars, pp.34–38; Crowe, Y., ‘Kütahya ceramics and international Armenian trade networks’, V&A Online Journal 3 (spring 2011), no pagination.

38. A coat of arms bestowed upon Shahamirian by King Heraclius II of Georgia (r.1744–1798) was quite different: ‘[...] a round shield with a golden ground, with a ship engraved in the centre [...] and in the midst of the ship is placed a rock [...] and on the rock is fixed an arm [...] and having in the hand a telescope [...] and on the back of the rock springs an apple tree [...]’, Seth, M. J., Armenians in India, pp.590–91.

20. Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, inv. nos. C.185-1977, 2714-1876, and 1248-1876. 21. Crowe, Y., Persia and China, pp.23, 174, 202, 205, 206. 22. Ferrier, R. W., ‘The Armenians and the East India Company’, pp.58–60; Baghdiantz-McCabe, I., ‘Caucasian Elites’, pp.91–102.

39. Howard, D., and Ayers, J., China for the West. Chinese Porcelain & other Decorative Arts for Export illustrated from the Mottahedeh Collection, Volume 2, London and New York, 1978, p.474, catalogue number 485; the reference to Beurdeley, M., Porcelain of the East India Companies, London, 1962, catalogue number 28 is erroneous, as the item illustrated there is another cup in the same museum, discussed below.

23. Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, pp.83–84; Chaudhury, S., ‘Introduction’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, p.9; Tokatlian, A., Kalantars, p.39. 24. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.217; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market’’’, p.15; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, p.156.

40. Christie’s, Chinese and Japanese Ceramics and Works of Art, Amsterdam, 3 May 1989, lot 230; Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.216; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, p.15; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, pp.150–51.

25. Tokatlian, A., Kalantars, p.32. 26. Aghassian, M., and Kévonian, K., ‘The Armenian merchant network’, pp.86–87.

41. Hacikyan, A. (ed.), The heritage of Armenian literature, pp.160–61; Aslanian, S. D., From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, pp.213–14.

27. Seth, M. J., Armenians in India from the earliest times to the present day, Calcutta, 1937, pp.588–89.

42. Fuchs III, R. W., and Howard, D. S., Made in China, p.81.

28. Schopp, S., ‘Up from the Watery Deep. The Discovery of an Armenian Gravestone in the South China Sea’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, pp.261–63.

43. De Castro, Nuno, Chinese Porcelain and the Heraldry of the Empire, Oporto, 1988, p.61. 44. Trivedi, M., The Making of the Awadh Culture, Delhi, 2010, pp.3, 158–59; Markel, S., ‘This Blaze of Wealth and Magnificence: The Luxury Arts of Lucknow’, in Markel, S., and Gude, T. B.,

29. Seth, M. J., Armenians in India, p.592; Schopp, S., ‘Up from the Watery Deep’, pp.259–74.

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India’s Fabled City. The Art of Courtly Lucknow, Los Angeles, 2010, pp.213–17.

59. Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art including Contemporary Indian and Pakistani Paintings (Auction 12051), London, New Bond Street, 28 April 2005, lot 529; the inscription cannot be transcribed with any certainty from the illustration but the name in the auction catalogue is given as ‘Gabriel George Ter Simonian’.

45. Markel, S., ‘This Blaze of Wealth and Magnificence’, pp.216– 17; Bartsch, K., and Kamleh, E., ‘Karbala in Lucknow: An Itinerary of Architectural Mobility’, International Journal of Islamic Architecture 3.2, 2014, pp.273–75.

60. Kerr, R., and Mengoni, L.E., Chinese Export Ceramics, pp.56–57. The reading first appears in Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Chinese Works of Art, London, 16 November 1971, lot 150.

46. Fiske, T., ‘Home, Robert (1752–1834)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004, http://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/article/13647.

61. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.220; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, pp.149–50.

47. Aghassian, M., and Kévonian, K., ‘The Armenian merchant network’, p.82.

62. Parke-Bernet, Chinese Art […] Property of Margaret Therese Clayton (Sale 2546), New York, 14 April 1967, lot 88. The catalogue mentions ‘[t]his service was apparently presented by Sir Jamsit Jeegeboy of Calcutta to Aveit Arookstein of Stein of Arook’ but this statement does not seem to be substantiated by evidence since Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy (1783–1859) was still very young when the tea set was commissioned. In 1971 the set (minus two bowls and saucers and the dish) was sold again, Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Chinese Works of Art, lot 150 (the count of 18 items includes the lids); in 1975 the jug was auctioned in New York, see Sotheby Parke Bernet, The American Heritage Society, Auction of Americana (Sale 3804), New York, 6–8 November 1975, lot 495 (the inscription described as ‘Cyrillic’); in 1989 three of the items not auctioned in 1971 were sold in New York, see Sotheby’s, Chinese Export Porcelain, New York, 25 January 1989, lot 417.

48. Beurdeley, M., Porcelain of the East India Companies, p.155, catalogue number 28; Beurdeley, M., Chinese Trade Porcelain, Rutland and Tokyo, 1963, p.155, catalogue number 28; Beurdeley, M., and Raindre, G., Qing Porcelain. Famille Verte, Famille Rose, London, 1986, p.234, catalogue number 327 (‘small cup for drinking alcohol’); in the above entries, Michel Beurdeley correctly connected the latter bowl to a patriarch, catholicos, of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin but did not identify any particular one. 49. Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art (Auction 16221), London, New Bond Street, 10 April 2008, lot 244; Christie’s, Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, London, King Street, 21 April 2016, lot 198. 50. On the decoration of the cathedral, see Adalian, R. P., Historical Dictionary of Armenia, Plymouth, 2010, p.301.

63. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, pp.220–22; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, p.14.

51. Baibourtian, V., ‘Participation of Iranian Armenians in World Trade in the 17th Century’, in Chaudhury, S., and Kévonian, K. (eds.), Les Arméniens dans le commerce asiatique, pp.44–45. 52. Shaw, N., ‘Skiagraphōntas tēn politistikē zōē tēs armenikēs koinotētas stēn ysterē Othōmanikē Autokratoria’, in Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.29.

64. Howard, D., and Ayers, J., China for the West, pp.472–73, catalogue number 484: ‘This service clearly had no religious or political significance and was designed for the personal use of someone probably engaged in trade in China’.

53. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, pp.218–19; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, p.14; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, pp.154–55.

65. V&A, inv. no. FE.98-1978, Kerr, R., and Mengoni, L.E., Chinese Export Ceramics, pp.56–57, plate 73. 66. Coleman Brawer, C., Chinese Export Porcelain from the Ethel (Mrs. Julius) Liebman and Arthur L. Liebman Porcelain Collection; Donated to the Elvehjem Museum by Mr. and Mrs. John C. Cleaver, Madison, 1992, p.82, catalogue number 57.

54. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, pp.222–23; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, p.14; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, p.155 (two plates are mentioned).

67. Curtis, P. H., Chinese Export Porcelain; a Loan Exhibition from New Jersey Collections, Newark, 1979, p.32, catalogue number and illustration 143; sold at Christie’s, The Peter H B Frelinghuysen Jr Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain (Sale 2528), New York, Rockefeller Plaza, 24 January 2012, lot 127.

55. Howard, D., and Ayers, J., China for the West, p.480, catalogue number 493. The border is ‘a debased form of the diaper-andspearhead border of the 1790s which was used in the late 1820s and 1830s’. 56. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.218; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, pp.155–56.

68. Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, pp.15–16.

57. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.222; Ayvazyan, A., The Inscribed Objects, p.154.

69. Aslanian, S., ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, p.38.

58. Chondrogiannēs, S., Opseis Armenikēs Technēs, p.214; Manginis, G., ‘Chinese Porcelain for “the Armenian Market”’, p.14.

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