Crown

Crown and Whip

This matching set of cap and whip (2005. 443.4, .5) is more lavishly embellished than nos. 2006.544.4 and .7. The striking design of the cap is composed of four layered rows of small silver appliqués, each in a different shape and design, including chevrons and rectangles. In Turkmen ornaments such forms are usually utilized as connecting links and pendants, but here they are used as the main design element of the base of the cap. The top of the cap is organized into triangular compartments of large table-cut turquoise plaques of various shades and divided by silver strips of varying width; it is ornamented with a loop, probably for a feather. The whip is of similar manufacture.

This set is remarkable for its beauty and sumptuousness. Although the crown and whip share certain features with Turkmen silver ornaments, it is atypical and its place of manufacture is difficult to determine.[8]

Layla S. Diba in [Diba 2011]

Footnotes:

8. Robert Chenciner has convincingly ascribed the crown to the northwest Caucasus or possibly the Kazakh Tartars (email to the author, November 2008). See Dmitriev, Vladimir, et al. Kaukasische Volkeren / The Caucasian Peoples. Exh. cat., Hessenhuis. Antwerp, 2001, p. 108, fig. 35, and front cover.

Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf, Toronto, Canada (until 2005; gifted to MMA)

Diba, Layla S. "Silver Ornaments from the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Collection." In Turkmen Jewelry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 4a, p. 51, ill. (color).

Rivkin, Kirill. Arms and Armor of Caucasus. United States, 2015. pp. 146–8, 156, ill. 73, pp. 146–8, 156.