Armenian ceramics in Jerusalem

The industry was started by David Ohannessian and other refugees from Kütahya, a city in western Anatolia noted for its Iznik pottery.

He worked in cooperation with Kütahya's two other worksops of that era, those owned by Mehmet Emin and by the Minassian brothers--Garabed and Harutyun.

In 1911 Ohannessian was commissioned with designing and executing Kütahya tile revetments for the Yorkshire home of Mark Sykes.

The family found refuge in Aleppo for nearly two years; they moved to Jerusalem when Sykes suggested that Ohannessian might be able to replicate the broken and missing tiles on the Dome of the Rock, a building then in a decayed and neglected condition.

[1][2] Although the commission for repair tiles for the Dome of the Rock was cut short in 1922, the Ohannession pottery in Jerusalem succeeded, as did the Karakashian painters and Balian potters that Ohannessian brought back with him when he briefly returned to Kütahya in the autumn of 1919 to obtain kaolin clays and other needed minerals from Kutahya.