Journal of Ottoman Calligraphy

by E.A.Rezvan

In the early 1960s, a collection of exquisite, enamel-encrusted gold cigarette cases adorned with diamonds, sapphires, rubies was bequeathed to the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. They were the gift of a somewhat mysterious elderly man named Charles Antoine Roger Luzarche d’Azay. Nearly every cigarette case bears a strange Arabic inscription. Many of them were decorated with ornaments based on Islamic art traditions.

Only later did it emerge that this was a gift received by the French officer Luzarche d’Azay, whose career was connected with Africa and Near East, a testimony of the French Princess Cecile Murat’s love for him. The Arabic letters on the cigarette cases are easily combined to form the name Cecile. The series was apparently created in the early 20th century in the workshops of the famed Karl Faberge, court jeweller of the Russian Emperor, the Kings of Sweden and Norway, the King of England, and the King of Siam…

Eleven richly illuminated Arabic, Persian and Indian manuscripts which, according to documents, which were purchased by Karl Faberge in the early 1900s found in the St. Petersburg academic collection of Oriental manuscripts. Thanks to this discovery we are able to peer into the artistic laboratory of the Faberge family and the firm’s craftsmen, who at the beginning of the 20th century produced a series of masterpieces with elements of “Muslim decoration” .

Among the manuscripts there are two miniature copies of the Qur’an, collections of poetry, literary, religious and biographical works, a beautiful album of Persian calligraphy samples, and Mogul miniatures.

The Muraqqa’ (album) is undoubtedly the gem of Faberge’s collection of Eastern manuscripts. In the course of preparatory work with the album, both specialists and museum curators were struck by its outstanding Indian miniatures and samples of calligraphy. The muraqqa’ folios bear traces of the cultures, religions and traditions of the Greater Indo-Turko-Iranian world, the Middle East, and Central Asia, as well as China and Eastern Africa. The Album’s large scale folios present portraits of prominent political figures and aristocrats, spiritual mentors and ordinary people. It also presents scenes from private life and illustrations to well-known literary works. Many of the Album folios show beautiful, elegantly dressed, delicately depicted female figures in various settings. A significant part of the miniatures are linked with special poetry collections - ragamala - which is a unique but little known concept of illustrating musical modes in pictorial form.

Only a special study by art historians can confirm or refute a connection between Faberge ’s “Muslim” creations and his Eastern manuscripts. It is, however, of note that the creation of a series with elements of “Muslim decoration” and the acquisition of manuscripts appear to have taken place at the same time. One can also see the vivid connections in between the Faberge ’s collection of Oriental manuscripts and series of gold cigarette cases which are held today in the Paris Musee des Arts Decoratifs.

The romantic story which is connected with the manuscript collection shortly described above and the series of Faberge cigarette cases is really fantastic. Princess Cecile Murat, nee Cecile Ney d’Elchingen, was born on August 28, 1867. She was the great-granddaughter of the famous Marechal Michel Ney, duc d’Elchingen (1769-1815), prince de la Moskowa. At the age of 17, she was given in marriage to Joachim Napoleon, Prince Murat (1856-1932). At some time around the turn of the century (the first cigarette case is dated 1901), when she was a little more than 30 years old, she apparently met and fell in love with the glamorous officer and marquis Charles Antoine Roger Luzarche d’Azay.

The lovers were soon parted, however. Luzarche d’Azay and his friend, the Comte Armand de Pracomtal, received an important and dangerous assignment as a consequence of the tense situation on the border between the French colonial territories and the Belgian Congo. At the end of November, 1902, the young officers sailed out of Marseille and arrived in Alexandria, then Cairo. Moving down the Nile to the Belgian-controlled lands, they surveyed a triangle, the apex of which was Gondokoro and the base formed by Mechra-er-Rek nd Nasser.

…Not satisfied with the vast territory annexed to the Congo at France’s expense, the Belgians of the Independent Kingdom dreamed of extended their realm to the borders of equatorial Egypt. At the beginning of 1893, they reached the Nile and founded the Belgian Congo region. Securing an agreement with the English and taking advantage of certain geographic ambiguities in the treaty of April 29, 1887, the Belgians continued to impinge on the French Congo. In 1891, Leothard and a handful of marksmen were able to return the French territories to the north of the fourth parallel.

This was followed by the Congo-English treaty of May 12, 1894. In it, Great Britain leased to Belgium the entire left bank of the Nile from Lake Albert to the northern part of Fashoda, giving the Belgians Egyptian territory that did not belong to England and cutting off all contact between the French realms and Egypt. France and Germany protested strenuously. Alarmed by the scandal, the Belgians decided to sign a treaty with the French (August 14, 1894).

The linkage of the Nile and the question of the Belgian annexation undoubtedly shows that even then the French government had decided to conduct reconnaissance on this river. They may have intended to raise before Europe the question of the English occupation of Egypt.

In March, 1897, the French captain Marchand, accompanied by only 150 men, left from Brazzaville for Ubangi. With great difficulty the French traversed 500 km of swamps, reaching Fashoda on the Nile (July 12, 1898) to raise the French flag on a partially destroyed Egyptian fortress. Beating off an attack by 1200 dervishes, they cleared the area they had won. The Italian defeat in Abyssinia raised France’s stock in the region, allowing the French to hope for help from the newly freed Abyssinian forces in their struggle with England.

England made every effort to hem the French in with Belgian territory, for at that time, up until 1898, the English government’s hands were tied. Only after Kitchener’s victory of the forces of the Mahdi and the conquest of Sudan (1898) did the English finally decide to put an end to the French ambitions with a direct threat of war.

Kitchener approached Fashoda in the middle of September. There he encountered Marchand and his small force. Kitchener asked Marchand to leave the Nile valley, but the French officer refused to evacuate his forces without a direct order from his government. This crisis in Anglo-French relations nearly led to an all-out war. For France, war with England carried with it the risk of German attack, as the latter could use the opportunity for a new assault on its Western neighbour. The French government capitulated. London and Paris soon reached an accord on the division of Africa. France found itself entirely cut off from the Nile basin, receiving some compensation in return. The border was set down in the main along the watersheds of lake Chad, the Congo, and the Nile. For giving up the Nile river basin, France received lake Chad and the previously contested Vadai region.

The preceding demonstrates the complex and delicate nature of the mission that the French officers undertook.

Upon his return, Luzarche d’Azay prepared the report on his journey. His beloved gave him a cigarette case. It bore her name in Arabic letters and a map of the expedition - the Nile Valley in three shades of gold. Eight places on it (Alexandria, Cairo, Suez, Aswan, Wadi Khilfa, Aqasha, Abu Hamid and Verber on the modern map) were marked by precious stones (rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds).

Another cigarette case, given as a gift on January 1, 1905, contains the entire service career of a French officer who fought in all the major colonial campaigns and battles of the First World War. The list ends with snowy Murmansk in Russia. The French disembarked there in the early spring of 1918. The dates coincide: this was when Faberge was compelled to leave Petersburg and relocate to Riga. The following inscriptions were made on the gold surface significantly later than 1905: “4-¥ ®uzard, 1er Chasseur d’Afrique, 1er Senegalais, 32e Dragons, 10 Dsion d’Infae”. “22¥ Dragons /1894/, Afrique /1895/, Madagascar /1908/ Maroc /1914-1918/ Argonne / Vauquois / Verdun / Avocourt / La Somme / Bouchavesnes / St. Pierre Vast / L’Aisne/Roucy / Craonne / Route 44 / Italie / Mourmansk / Spa”.

The gap between 1895 and 1908 is apparently connected with Luzarche d’Azay’s role in the dispute over the territories at the base of the Nile.

Each of these cigarette cases was linked in some way to important events in the life of Princess Cecile and Luzarche d’Azay. We find there a chronicle of their relationship. One of the cases, bears the imprint of a man and women walking in a forest and their carriage (with a monogram inside: May 21, 1901); the other with a surface fashioned to resemble a gold nugget has a secret compartment containing a portrait of a woman and a date: “XXXI JUILLET MCMIV”.

They lived a long life. In 1932 the princess became a widow. There may still be Parisians of long standing in the vicinity of Messine square who remember the old marquis, who each day walked down Rue Messine to visit his beloved. She died in 1960; he followed two years later. Immediately after her death, the marquis gave the Museum several cigarette cases. The remainder entered the collection two years later.

The first step towards the realization of the project will be reparation and publication of the monograph devoted to the Faberge collection of Muslim manuscripts. The book will contain a research section, facsimile publication, and a video DVD with a film devoted to the story. I call this “three -dimensional publishing” (the printed text - illustrations - video). Moreover, the third level will provide a link between pure scholarship and material intended for general reader as well as for educational purposes. In our case, the story of the Muslim cultural and artistic influence over the works of the great Russian jeweller could be very important for mutual understanding and inter-confessional dialogue both in Russia and Europe.

I am certain that Faberge’s collection of Eastern manuscripts will be a source of fascinating tales for researchers. One of deals with the love that found its expression in the Taj Mahall; it was reflected in astonishing miniatures and many years later resurfaced in tiny masterworks of applied art that allowed a smitten aristocrat to convey her passion to a French officer.

Not only Karl Faberge, but also Lui Cartier and Henri Vever, all most important jewellers of the nineteenth century, had col-lections of Eastern manuscripts and miniatures that inspired them to create the marvels of their art that today adorn the world’s great museums and private collections. These out-standing artists and jewellers most likely did not fully un-derstand the ancient traditions that inspired the examples of Eastern miniature and calligraphy in their collections. But it was undoubtedly the profundity and power of the Eastern tradition that added to their works the enchanting beauty that so distinguishes the unified creative principle of East and West.

On the project, please, read:

* E.A.Rezvan, “Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. I : The Qur’an”, Manuscripta Orientalia VII/1 (2001), pp.40-61;
* idem, “Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. II: ragamala miniatures of the Album (muraqqa’) (part one)”, Manuscripta Orientalia VII/2 (2001), pp.23-37;
* idem,”Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. II: ragamala miniatures of the Album (muraqqa’) (part two)”, Manuscripta Orientalia VII/3 (2001), pp. 16-25;
* idem, “Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. III: biographical works and portraits (part one)”, Manuscripta Orientalia VII/4 (2001), pp.48-54;
* idem,”Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. III: biographical works and portraits (part two), Manuscripta Orientalia VIII/1 (2002), pp.39-48;
* idem, “Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. IV; poetry and miniatures” (part one), Manuscripta Orientalia VIII/2 (2002), pp.52-60;
* idem, “Oriental manuscripts of Karl Faberge. IV; poetry and miniatures” (part two), Manuscripta Orientalia VIII/3 (2002), pp.46-52

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