Lot 244. A rare and important Aqqoyunlu steel turban helmet, Turkey or Persia, second half 15th century; 50.5cm. height (with chainmail). Estimate 50,000 — 70,000 GBP. Lot sold 62,500 GBP. Photo Sotheby's 2016.

of cylindrical form rising to a swollen band of vertical flutes narrowing to a pointed apex with affixed flattened bud finial, two affixed plates on each side, indents for the eyes and nose-guard to front, affixed chainmail, narrow band around base with gilt inscription and silver design above.

Provenance: Formerly in the collection at Château de Villandry, France.

inscriptions: On the nose guard:
Invocations to God as:
‘O The Judge of [all] needs!  O sufficient of necessities! O God! O Raiser of dignities!  O the Guardian of [everything] good!

Around the rim in long cartouches: 
Qur’an, chapter XLVIII (al-Fath), verses 1-4.

In the roundels:
‘O sufficient of necessities! O Raiser of dignities!  O the responder to prayers! O The Judge of [all] needs!’.

Note: This helmet, which is characterised by its large yet elegant domical shape with a band of flutes and gently rising finial, is also referred to as a ‘turban helmet’ due to the resemblance of these flutes to the folds on a turban. Turbans could be representative of one’s rank or religious order, and the way that these were wound and the numbers of folds created were particularly important indicators of rank or religious status. This form is a type associated to both Ottoman Sultans and the Aqqoyunlu rulers, perhaps also the Shirvan Shah Farrukhsiyar (Alexander 1992, p.68).

There is a great variety amongst the inscriptions carried on these helmets. Other examples from this group carry inscriptions naming the Ottoman sultans Orhan and Bayezid II. Another, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 04.3.211), mentions the name of Sultan Ya’qub of the Aqqoyunlu (White Sheep Turkoman) who ruled between 1478 and 1490. Further comparables in the Metropolitan Museum of Art include inv. nos. 36.25.109, and inv. no. 04.3.212, whose inscription, of foliate script, rather resembles Iznik pottery.