Fortified Armenian monasteries in Iran were added to the new sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List on 6 July.

The Armenian Monastic Ensembles in Iran, in the north-east of the country, consists of three monastic ensembles of the Armenian Christian faith: St Thaddeus and St Stepanos and the Chapel of Dzordzor. These edifices - the oldest of which, St Thaddeus, dates back to the 7th century – are examples of outstanding universal value of the Armenian architectural and decorative traditions.

They bear testimony to very important interchanges with the other regional cultures, in particular the Byzantine, Orthodox and Persian. Situated on the south-eastern fringe of the main zone of the Armenian cultural space, the monasteries constituted a major centre for the dissemination of that culture into Azerbayjan and Persia. They are the last regional remains of this culture that are still in a satisfactory state of integrity and authenticity. Furthermore, as places of pilgrimage, the monastic ensembles are living witnesses of Armenian religious traditions through the centuries.

This is the fourth cultural site to be added onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List since the start of the current session of the World Heritage Committee today. The three properties inscribed earlier today were: Le Morne Cultural Landscape in Mauritius, The Al-Hijr Archaeological Site (Madâin Sâlih) in Saudi Arabia, and the Fujian Tulou in China.

Iran had eight historical sites on the UNESCO list. Pasargadae, Bam and its Cultural Landscape, Tchogha Zanbil, Persepolis, Meidan Emam in Esfahan, Bisotun, Takht-e Soleyman and Soltaniyeh, the mausoleum of Oljaytu. So magnificent Armenian monastic ensembles in Azerbaijan province becomes its ninth inscription on the World Heritage List.

Persian carpet

A magnificent Isfahan carpet, circa 1600, from the Doris Duke collection at the Newport Restoration Foundation, Newport, Rhode Island, came under the hammer at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center, New York City, on Tuesday, June 3. It sold for $4,450,500 (including buyer’s premium), the highest price ever paid for a carpet at auction.

Estimated at $1,000,000/ 1,500,000, the approximately 7′7″ x 5′7″ carpet has been known in the United States since 1930. In June of that year it was on the title page of ARTnews. It had once been in the collection of Grace Rainey-Rogers, then in Hagop Kevorkian’s collection, and then, after selling at Sotheby’s in 1990 to an anonymous buyer, was acquired by Doris Duke.

With a silk warp and weft, its tonality and design is reminiscent of the group of 17th-century “Polonaise” carpets, although rug expert Michael Franses asserts it preceded them. Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman included the rug in their seminal work A Survey of Persian Art. Pope wrote about it, “Nothing further in the way of refinement, imagination, perfection of technique, or infinite charm of color was produced in this period.” Pope referred to the apex of Safavid art during the reign of Shah Abbas (1587-1629).

“We were absolutely thrilled with the results. It went beyond our expectations,” said Elisabeth Parker, department head of Oriental rugs and carpets at Christie’s. “It was an honor to be able to sell this carpet.”

The buyer remains anonymous, although there is speculation that it went to a major museum.

by Julia Winston Adams

The Polish Postal Service has commemorated the role Isfahan played during World War 2 in caring for Polish orphans.

The new stamp, “Isfahan - the City of Polish Children”, went on sale earlier this month. It depicts a pupil at School No. 15 near Isfahan (Stanislaw Stojakowski), standing in front of a Persian carpet woven at the city’s Carpet School in 1944.

In 1942, Isfahan housed thousands of Polish orphans released from the Soviet work camps of Siberia and Kazakhstan. At its peak, twenty one areas of the city were exclusively allocated to the welfare of the ragged and emaciated orphans who had been sent there from reception centres in Anzali, Tehran and Mashad. Many of them remained in the city for up to three years, earning it the title “City of Polish children”, the name which also appears (in Polish) on the stamp’s First Day Commemorative Cover. In addition, the cover sports a design showing hundreds of the Polish names fading illegibly into oblivion.

Between 1942 and 1945, Iran played host to almost 150,000 men women and children of the “Polish Exodus from Russia”. The majority of the children ended up in Isfahan.

The stamp, issued on 10th June 2008, has a face value of 2 zloty 40 groszy, and is already proving extremely popular with the Polish public.

Ryszard Antolak