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25-522: The bucket is named after its former owner, Count Aleksei Bobrinsky (1852–1927) and now resides in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg , Russia . The bucket is one the of most famous and earliest pieces of Persian metalwork associated with Herat in the late 12th century and is one of the earliest examples of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic scripts. The Bobrinski Bucket is a prominent example of

50-474: A bathhouse. The bucket’s bail handle could have been helpful in a bathhouse setting. The historian Nikolay Veselovsky had asserted that the bucket was a vessel for carrying food; However, the bucket lacks tinning on the interior that would have prevented corrosion from food. Souren Melikian and Robert Hillenbrand have connected the bucket to the Hajj, suggesting that it was either a Pilgrimage accessory or marked

75-414: A coincidence, a reference to the draconian calendar (which has twenty-seven and some months), or the twenty-eight lunar mansions . There is much scholarly debate about the purpose and uses of the bucket. Early scholars such as Richard Ettinghausen and Ralph Harari have hypothesized that the bucket was used as a water bucket, as it exhibits similarities to one exhibited in a fifteenth century painting of

100-512: A letter, in which she openly avowed her maternity. She named him Bobrinsky, a surname derived from the estate he lived in. On the 5th day of his reign, Emperor Paul made his half-brother a count of the Russian Empire and promoted him to general-major. He married Baroness Anna Dorothea von Ungern-Sternberg (1769–1846) and had issue that continues to this day. The first Count Bobrinsky died on June 20, 1813, in his estate of Bogoroditsk, to

125-501: A variety of different objects, rather than only being able to create one object. This, along with the choice to use Persian and Arabic for the inscription solidifies the Bobrinski Bucket as an early and important work showcasing Herat as an important hub of production and craftsmanship, and highlights the emergence of Persian art during this period. The bucket features three bands of calligraphy . The first band of calligraphy

150-400: Is in an anthropomorphic script, meaning that the letters have human features. The second band is an interlaced Kufic script with a geometric pattern. The third band consists of anthropomorphic script with the tails of the letters interlaced with running animals. Such anthropomorphic and zoomorphic scripts are commonly found in works from the twelfth century. These bands of inscription along

175-727: The Pamir Mountains , accompanied by a photographer and a linguist. His observations were published and are now available in an archive in the State Historical Museum . Another part of his collections of utensils and folk art, including the Bobrinski bucket , is at the Hermitage Museum . After the revolutions of 1917, he settled at his villa in Seis am Schlern . The Ismaili peoples among whom he travelled respect his work and reputation. The 150th anniversary of his birth

200-698: The 1870s. In the 20th century, the premises suffered enormous damage from the Bolsheviks , who demolished the wings of the palace in 1929, and from the Wehrmacht , who blew up the chateau in December 1941. The palace was restored in the 1960s and now functions as a museum. Aleksey's son Count Aleksey Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1800–1868) is remembered as the founder of the sugar-processing industry in Imperial Russia. After brief and uneventful career at

225-712: The Bobrinskys, he emigrated to France following the revolutionary nationalization of their family enterprises. He is buried in the cemetery at Montmartre . Apart from politics, Count Aleksey Alexandrovich was a noted historian and archaeologist, Chairman of the Imperial Archaeological Commission (1886), Vice-President of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1889), and Chairman of the Free Economic Society (1894). He led

250-554: The bucket was produced as a showpiece of new designs and images that was presented as a gift to the workshop owner. Aleksei Bobrinsky The Counts Bobrinsky or Bobrinskoy ( Бобринские ) are a Russian noble family descending from Count Aleksey Grigorievich Bobrinsky (1762–1813), who was Catherine the Great 's natural son by Count Grigory Orlov . Empress Catherine II gave birth to her only official illegitimate son on April 11, 1762, several months before her ascension to

275-560: The bucket’s body are written in Arabic . The text consists of well wishes for the owner of the bucket, as is typical for portable Islamic metalwork. The rim of the bucket is inscribed in Persian . The inscription lists the bucket’s caster, Muhammed ibn ‘Abd al-Wāhid, and the person who applied the decorative elements to the bucket, Mas’ūd ibn Ahmad. It also describes the person who ordered the bucket, ‘Abd al Rahmān ibn ‘Abdallāh al-Rashīdi, and

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300-433: The completion of the Hajj, based on the references to this in the bucket’s inscriptions. Others have concluded that the bucket was a gift. Ruba Kana’an’s interpretation of the bucket’s purpose is most widely accepted in present day scholarship of the Bobrinski Bucket. Kana‘an uses her extensive study of the legal writings of Muslim jurists to better understand the production and patronage of Islamic metalware. She concludes that

325-757: The construction of the first railway in Russia. Bobrinsky's contributions to the national economics were commemorated by a bronze statue in Kiev . Unlike many other Russian nobles, the Bobrinskys continued as prosperous businessmen after the 1861 emancipation of serfs , starting coal mining in their estates near Tula and helping to build railways all over Russia. Aleksey Alekseyevich's second son Count Vladimir Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1824–1898) served as Minister of Transportation in 1868–1871, succeeded in this post by his cousin, Count Aleksey Pavlovich Bobrinsky (1826–1894). The eldest great-grandson of Count Aleksey Alekseyevich

350-708: The east of Tula . Bobrinsky Palace, the Bobrinsky family seat in Bogoroditsk , was designed by Ivan Starov and constructed in the 1770s and 1780s, starting in 1773. The nearby Kazanskaya church was completed by 1778. The park was laid out by the palace's administrator, Andrey Bolotov (1738–1833), who is better known as one of the first Russian economists. It was Bolotov who established the Children's Theatre in Bogoroditsk. The palace and estate were renovated in

375-479: The edges were trimmed back, and hammered until held well in place. The copper and silver inlays create a multicolored, polychromatic surface for the bucket.   The division of labor between the caster and decorator of the bucket follows a trend commonly observed in Persian art of the time. Allocating the designing of different elements of the metalwork to multiple people allowed artists to apply their designs to

400-545: The excavations of Scythian mounds near Kerch and Kiev, describing some of his findings in the monograph on Tauric Chersonesos (1905). He was in charge of the extraction and publication of the Pereshchepina hoard . Vladimir's nephew, Count Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1890–1964) specialized in biology . Unlike his relatives, he chose to remain in Moscow after the revolution and came to be recognized as one of

425-482: The handle and ending at the bottommost band, the Bobrinski bucket is filled with iconography . The images on the bucket are associated with the ideal kingship but due to their lack of visual hierarchy are actually thought to be stock images. While most of the images are stock scenes, the meaning behind the sun in the uppermost band has been discussed. According to Willy Hartner the sun’s twenty-eight rays may be

450-404: The inlay technique developed in twelfth century Herat. The bucket’s inlaid calligraphy was created using silver and copper wire that was laid down in shallow recesses in the bronze body and hammered down until the wire was firmly inlaid. Similarly, for the spatial inlays, used in larger areas such as the human heads or bodies of animals, a silver or copper sheet was laid over an area where only

475-415: The monarchist cause. Count Vladimir Alekseyevich Bobrinsky (1868–1927) was the third son of Count Aleksey Pavlovich. He was educated at Monkton Combe School , near Bath, Somerset , together with three of his younger brothers. He represented Russian nationalists in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th State Dumas, advocating speedy Russification of border regions and supporting Pyotr Stolypin 's reforms. Like most of

500-533: The most prominent Soviet zoologists . A species of jerboa is named after him. His son Nikolay Nikolayevich, a geographer, who wrote a novel on the life of the first Bobrinsky, lived in Moscow until his death in 2000. Count Alexey Alexeyevich Bobrinsky  [ ru ] (1861–1938) was the last owner of the Bobriki estate. A scholarly ethnographer, he organized three expeditions to the tribes and villagers in

525-520: The person who the bucket was made for, who the inscription refers to as “the eminent hajji Rukn ad-din , the glorious of merchants, the Muslims trusted man, an ornament to the hajj and both holy places Rashid ad-Din Azizi ibn al-Husayn az-Zanjani, may his fame endure”. A Kufic inscription on the top of the handle reveals the month and year the bucket was completed. From the top down, starting with

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550-438: The royal court, he retired from service and settled in Bogoroditsk, establishing one of the first Russian sugar refineries there. Later, he moved his operations to Ukraine , making various agricultural activities the chief source of his family income. It was thanks to him that Russia stopped importing sugar from abroad. He also published a treatise on economic theory and set up a society for development of railways, which financed

575-598: The throne. Catherine had to conceal the pregnancy. When the due date came, to distract her husband, Emperor Peter III , her trusted servant Vasily Shkurin was ordered to burn his own house, knowing that the Emperor had a passion to watch the fires. The child was named Aleksey after his uncle and godfather, Count Aleksey Orlov . He was brought up in Bobriki , a village in the Tula guberniya . On April 2, 1781, Catherine sent him

600-854: Was Count Aleksei Aleksandrovich Bobrinsky (1852–1927), who led the Council of United Nobility starting in 1906 and represented the nobility of the St Petersburg guberniya in the Senate and the 3rd State Duma . He was appointed into the State Council of Imperial Russia in 1912. During World War I , Bobrinskoy was elected Chairman of the Russian-English Bank . In 1916, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Interior and Minister of Agriculture. The October Revolution forced him to emigrate to France , where he actively campaigned for

625-466: Was celebrated in 2011. Robert Hillenbrand Robert Hillenbrand FBA (born 2 August 1941) is a British art historian who specialises in Persian and Islamic art . He is a professorial fellow of the universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews . He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge for 2008–09. He gave the 2010 Aspects of Art Lecture. In 2018 during

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