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Document Details :

Title: An Unpublished Seventeenth-Century Armenian Psalter, a Constantinopolitan Scriptorium and Markos Patkerahan
Author(s): GREENWOOD, T.
Journal: Revue des Études Arméniennes
Volume: 29    Date: 2003-2004   
Pages: 323-382
DOI: 10.2143/REA.29.0.2002628

Abstract :
This unpublished Psalter was copied at the church of Saint Sargis the General and his son Martiros in Constantinople in 1659 by the scribe Mat‘eos for Petros son of Vardan. This church was an important centre for manuscript production in the seventeenth century, patronised by several leading Armenian clerics. Forty-nine other manuscripts produced at this church are identified, clustered between 1629 and 1660. The Psalter contains eight full-page miniatures, six marginal miniatures illustrating Canticles, twenty marginal figures of King David, eight elaborate head-pieces and thirty-eight separate marginal ornaments, including birds and temples. Markos patkerahanwas responsible for these illuminations. He illustrated at least ten other extant manuscripts in addition to the Psalter, including two manuscripts copied at this church, and there may be other manuscripts whose illumination should be attributed to him. His son, Gabriel, was also an artist. A Psalter copied and illuminated by Gabriel in 1672 bears a remarkable likeness to this Psalter. It seems likely that this Psalter derives ultimately from a Cilician archetype, which in turn may have drawn upon earlier Byzantine models.

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