An Ottoman silver, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl and ivory staff, Turkey, Istanbul, 17th century

in three parts screwed together, decorated with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell alternating plaques forming an octagonal tall support, with bulbous ivory projections, the silver terminal carved as two facing dragon heads emerging from a scaly body, fitted in custom box  

Couleurs d'Orient, Arts et arts de vivre dans l'Empire Ottoman, Villa Empain, Fondation Boghossian, Brussels, 18 November - 27 February 2011

F. Hitzel, Couleurs d'Orient, Arts et arts de vivre dans l'Empire Ottoman, Villa Empain, Fondation Boghossian, Brussels, 18 November - 27 February 2011, p.68

In good overall condition, the ivory tip with minor chip to finial, some light scratches, few of tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl plaques with a crack or small chip, one or two minor repairs to this effect, the silver terminal in good condition, very minor oxidisation on supporting mount, the box with some inner tears to lining and some stains, the leather exterior with some ware, particularly around the edges, as viewed.
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Following the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II and his forces in 1453, the city came under Islamic rule after over eight hundred years of Byzantine, Orthodox dominance. The establishment of Constantinople as the seat of the Ottoman Empire held a deep resonance for its new Islamic conquerors, who quickly erected their own spiritual visual language so that Istanbul is now dominated by the minarets of Sinan and its multitude of striking mosques. Relics of its former Byzantine era remain, as throughout Ottoman rule, non-Muslim communities were free to practise their religion and held a certain religious juristic and administrative autonomy, being placed under a special 'protected' status (dhimmi). The Orthodox Christian Patriarch lived in the Fener quarter on the Golden Horn, whereas that of the Armenian Church lived in the Kum Kapi neighbourhood (Hitzel 2011, p.68).

This silver, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl and ivory staff is symbolic of the fusion between Byzantine and Ottoman traditions, and the new aesthetic which formed after the Ottoman conquest. Whereas the staff is an ecclesiastical sceptre (crozier), used in the Eastern Church since the sixth century, it was decorated with purely Ottoman technique of mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell hammered with nails (see previous lot). A similar staff, with the characteristic double-headed snakes (a symbolic reference to the wisdom associated with the archbishop’s pastoral leadership) is in the State Historical-Culture Museum Preserve, Moscow Kremlin (inv. no. DK-1536, illustrated in Shifman and Walton 2002, pp.174-5, no.26). Attributed to the seventeenth century, the staff entered the Kremlin in 1919 but is said to have been offered as a gift probably from Patriarch Macharius of Antioch to Patriarch Nikon (Patriarch of Russia) (ibid.).

This staff and the present example are rare representatives of the strong remaining Orthodox community in Istanbul in the seventeenth-eighteenth century. Continuing into the 19th century, we can see a photograph dated to circa 1880 of an Armenian Patriarch from Trebizond pictured holding a similar staff. The photo was executed by J. Pascal Sebah, an Armenian who owned one of the most famous studios in Constantinople “El Chark” studio ( (Julia Grimes, Armenians and Armenian Photographers in the Ottoman Empire, Getty Research Institute).