Among Zoroastrian burial items, there is a camel-shaped zoomorphic OSTADON lying there. It was found…
The Saxonian State Collections of Ethnography (SES) were formed in 2004 from the three ethnological museums in Saxony – Leipzig, Dresden and Herrnhut.
All three museums have their own collection traditions corresponding to their different histories. The focus in Leipzig is more on ceramics, and in Dresden on textile products, while the small collection in Herrnhut includes only a few objects from Uzbekistan. The majority of the pieces were originally purchased from the private collection of the Leipzig graphic artist and painter Gerd Thielemann. Some of these animal figures were presented to Gerd Thielemann as gifts from the artisans themselves.
In Denov, a small town on the border with Tajikistan, green and ocher colors are used for engraved and glazed objects. Sometimes these vessels are embellished with lines of Arabic or Persian script.
Master potters in Gijduvan made bowls and plates with elaborately arranged floral ornaments and rosettes, with radiant, golden ocher glazes and complementary blue inlays or “running” glazes. Animal elements characterize these ceramics, typical ornamental shapes being eagle tails, snake tracks and owls. This bowl with a convex base is interesting. There is a small clay ball in the cavity, which turns it into a “rattle bowl”. Children were given their food in “rattle bowls” of this kind and enjoyed shaking their empty bowl when the meal was finished.
Uba continues to produce traditional folk art up to today. A master in this field was the plain-spoken, kind and modest folk artist Hamro Rahimova from Uba (1896 – 1979), well-known beyond the borders of Uzbekistan. She created a veritable magical world with her pipe-animals made of fired white clay. Her fully modelled creations, always looking forwards and standing on wedge-shaped legs, were painted with characteristic decorations – red and blue dots or lines.
The little figures, despite the austereness of their construction, are alive. Horses, donkeys, lions, sheep and elephants embody a style that has found expression in Uzbekistan for millennia in its simplicity and monumentality, its naive naturalness and cohesion.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "Collections of the Federal Republic of Germany" (volume XI) in the series "Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections".
The main sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
