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Lot Essay
The technique of setting a combination of turquoise and rubies into precious objects is known in both Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey. The mounts offered here are likely to have been from a staff or mace created in one of these courts. They would probably have been affixed to a shaft, and may have included other elements, for instance a sphere that was suspended below the hemispherical element in the top of the image. A staff gifted by Shah ‘Abbas of Iran to Patriarch Filaret in 1629 is in the Kremlin Museum (The Tsars and the East. Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin, exhibition catalogue, Washington DC, 2009, no.17, pp.48-49). That staff comprised several individual mounts on a central wooden shaft. Like ours it also has a ground engraved with floral motifs and rubies and turquoise set in high, slightly crude mounts.
Unlike ours however, the ground of the Kremlin staff does not include any enamelling. If one looks closely at ours, there are small panels of white enamel in some of the leaf motifs. This is a feature that is much more commonly found on Ottoman works of art. An Armenian cross-shaped reliquary made in Ottoman Turkey, which was gem-set and enamelled sold at Christie's, London, 23 April 2015, lot 197. Other examples of gem-set elements which also include enamelling in their decoration are published by Nurhan Atasoy and Lâle Uluç, Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe: 1453-1699, Istanbul, 2012, nos.301-306, p.312.
Richly embellished Ottoman maces (gürz), as well as similar ceremonial military equipment became popular as power symbols in European courts in the 16th and 17th centuries. Ottoman, or Ottoman style, spherical or winged maces are often seen among the power symbols in portraits of central and eastern European nobility. See for example The Portrait of Janusz Radziwill, ca.1652 or The Portrait of Stanislaw Kamienski, dated 1694 (both published in Atasoy and Uluç, nos.168 and 171, pp.232-233). In both portraits the sitters hold in their hands maces of a type that may originally have been similar to ours. Ottoman ceremonial maces, similarly inlaid are also published in Atasoy and Uluç, 2012, nos.169 and 170, p.233. A less heavily inlaid one is in the Sadberk Hanim Museum (inv.no.17305-M.1463; Reunited After Centuries, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2005, no.45, pp.112-113). All are dated to the 17th century.
Unlike ours however, the ground of the Kremlin staff does not include any enamelling. If one looks closely at ours, there are small panels of white enamel in some of the leaf motifs. This is a feature that is much more commonly found on Ottoman works of art. An Armenian cross-shaped reliquary made in Ottoman Turkey, which was gem-set and enamelled sold at Christie's, London, 23 April 2015, lot 197. Other examples of gem-set elements which also include enamelling in their decoration are published by Nurhan Atasoy and Lâle Uluç, Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe: 1453-1699, Istanbul, 2012, nos.301-306, p.312.
Richly embellished Ottoman maces (gürz), as well as similar ceremonial military equipment became popular as power symbols in European courts in the 16th and 17th centuries. Ottoman, or Ottoman style, spherical or winged maces are often seen among the power symbols in portraits of central and eastern European nobility. See for example The Portrait of Janusz Radziwill, ca.1652 or The Portrait of Stanislaw Kamienski, dated 1694 (both published in Atasoy and Uluç, nos.168 and 171, pp.232-233). In both portraits the sitters hold in their hands maces of a type that may originally have been similar to ours. Ottoman ceremonial maces, similarly inlaid are also published in Atasoy and Uluç, 2012, nos.169 and 170, p.233. A less heavily inlaid one is in the Sadberk Hanim Museum (inv.no.17305-M.1463; Reunited After Centuries, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, 2005, no.45, pp.112-113). All are dated to the 17th century.