TWO WHITE METAL MOULDS FOR KUTAHYA POTTERY BOTTLES: ST. GEORGE, AND KINGS AND MAIDENS
Western Anatolia, Ottoman Provinces, 19th century

Comprising a rectangular bottle, resting on a flat base, rising to narrow stepped shoulders, possibly made of lead or pewter, decorated on the front and back with repoussé icons of St. George (Kevork or Gevorg) slaying the dragon, both images set within cusped arches enhanced with vegetal festoons and fretwork bands reminiscent of the frontispieces and colophons of Armenian illuminated manuscripts, each side with repoussé figural decoration with a crowned king at the top and two armed warriors below him, 15.5cm high; and another, similar, of hexagonal shape, each side split in half and decorated with repoussé figures of enthroned kings with crowns and their staff of honour on the top, and young maidens next to a tree on the bottom, all encased withing vegetal festoons and decorative fretwork bands, 18.5cm high.

The motif of St. George on our bottle mould is a common and dear one to the Armenian community living in both the Western Anatolian and Caucasian territories. Several Kutahya pottery tiles produced for the Armenian Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem depict this motif, the earliest dating to 1168 AH (1718) (John Carswell, Kütahya Tiles and Pottery from the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Jerusalem, vol. I, Oxford, 1972, tile CI, pl.10). With the potters' skill increasing, the Kutahya kilns started moving from flat to three-dimensional figural representations, which in order to accomplish would have needed moulds like ours. An example of a Kutahya flask with moulded panels depicting St. George was successfully sold at Christie's London, 25 April 2013, lot 254.