From the Workshops of Julfa to the Court of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich: Armenian Networks and the Mobility of Visual Culture

Dispersed across vast geographical areas, Armenian merchants, artists, and religious scholars not only played a pivotal role in the circulation of goods and information; they also served as mediators of artistic idioms. This paper takes as its focus the activities of the Armenian artist-merchant Astuacatur, born and trained in Julfa. By the late 1660s, Astuacatur was in Russia, where he worked at the court of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich under the name Bogdan Saltanov and initiated a school of painting characterized by the use of European iconography and techniques, which was very different from pre-existing Russian schools. Although Bogdan's oeuvre and biography have been well documented by an Armenian scholar, the visual and textual evidence concerning this imperial painter has yet to be interpreted in the broader context of exchange via global mercantile and diplomatic networks. This paper begins by discussing Bogdan's work against the backdrop of the circulation of luxury items and other goods between Safavid Iran and the Romanov courts. It then explores the significance of Bogdan's commissions for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Although the Russian court had access to European art and painters, it was through an Armenian painter that western iconography and techniques were most enthusiastically received. This paper thus explores how channels of transmission via merchant networks often shaped degrees of reception.