20 October 2014

Keeping the traditions of Kutahya Armenians

New comment by Sato Moughalian

Fascinating article--a couple of corrections. Neshan Balian came to Jerusalem in October 1919, not 1917. The British were not even in Jerusalem until mid-December 1917. The Armenian ceramist David Ohannessian of Kutahya was introduced to Jerusalem Governor Ronald Storrs by Sir Mark Sykes in December 1918, and was the first to arrive. Sykes, Storrs, and a number of other British officials remembered the magnificent tiled room that Ohannessian had created for the Sykes estate in Yorkshire in 1913, and sought him out to establish a ceramics tradition in Jerusalem. Ohannessian arrived in Jerusalem in early 1919, and then went back to Kutahya in August 1919, returning with materials and with Balian and Karakashian, who were under his employ until 1922, when they left to found their own joint workshop. It is wonderful to see that the descendants of Balian and Karakashian continue their marvelous work today. 

Original article appeared here: 

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