Colonnettes in white ceramic

This small white ceramic colonnette, preserved in the Museum of Hagia Sophia, was discovered in Istanbul with another, similar colonnette. Very well preserved, these colonnettes have a polychrome design comprising cobalt blue and amber glazes. Blue peacock feathers are painted on the shaft, and are surrounded by a white band bearing a diamond shaped amber eye. The shaft and the capital are separated by a highly stylised band of ovi (egg-shaped ornamental motif) and heart-shaped moulding. This motif is also shown on fragments of white ceramic cornice fragments, a cornice that is identical to the one in the museum of Hagia Sophia. Between two amber coloured bands there is a branch of foliage whose palmettes are wound around themselves. Above, two other amber bands there is a thick black wavy line. The colonnettes no longer have their bases.

We know that white ceramics were used as an element of architectural decoration in Constantinople[1] between the ninth and eleventh centuries. An animal frieze in the Louvre Museum, Paris[2], constitutes an example of such use. Practically contemporary examples are to be found in Samarra[3]. There is proof that white ceramic was used in the Byzantine Empire starting in the seventh century. The latest research proves that it was introduced there from the West, and that this production is technically speaking independent of the white ceramic ware found in the Middle East. However, it cannot be excluded that borrowings, particularly of glazing and decorating techniques, were made from the Islamic world in the ninth century. Although the majority of the ornamental repertory found in these Byzantine works is already known to exist from late Antiquity, and even in the classical Antique repertory, this technique was also used for ceramic icons, of which there is a series in the Louvre Museum as well as in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Depending on what the object in white ceramic was needed for, they would be moulded, flat or curved. At the time of the Macedonian dynasty, extremely thin cladding panels (4-10 mm), cornice fragments with a geometrical pattern or ovi and heart and dart patterns, as well as panels with chequered or snaky patterns could be found. Other colonnettes showed chequerboard or geometrical patterns, and it should be mentioned that there are fragments of torus with floral designs or half rosettes.

A series found in Preslav, Bulgaria, shows that these elements may have been used to form a small templon.  Colonnettes such as the one illustrated here, and the icons mentioned above, may come from buildings of this type.

The use of white ceramic with polychrome designs fits in perfectly with the spirit of the era of the Macedonian dynasty, when diversity in materials was appreciated. Here we have a technique and motifs originating, for the most part, from the Islamic world, and to a certain extent, from the Sassanid world, as well as from the Greco-Roman tradition as it was revisited by late Antiquity.

[2] See Durand, J. (éd.), Byzance, l’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises, (cat. exp., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1992-1993), Paris: RMN, 1992, p. 390, n°297a. This object was published without an inventory number.

[3] These are ceramic tiles for cladding, dating from the ninth century. One is to be found in the Museum für islamische Kunst, Berlin, inv. Sam 758a.