Balian Armenian Ceramics of Jerusalem

Balian Armenian Ceramics traces to 1919, when master potter Neshan Balian Sr. arrived in Jerusalem from Kütahya, in Ottoman Turkey, recruited by David Ohannessian to help restore the ceramic tiles on the Dome of the Rock under the British Mandate. In 1922, Balian and fellow craftsman Mgerdich Karakashian struck out on their own, opening a joint pottery on Nablus Road in East Jerusalem. The two families worked side by side, the Balians handling clay, glazes and firing, the Karakashians the drawing and painting, until they parted ways in the 1960s; the Karakashians founded a separate workshop on the Via Dolorosa, while the Balians remained on Nablus Road, moving to their present address after 1948.

The workshop's design language shifted decisively with Marie Balian, a French-Armenian painter trained at the Beaux-Arts of Lyon, who joined the family after marrying Setrag Balian Sr. in the 1960s. Where earlier Kütahya-derived patterns were largely static, Marie introduced dynamic figures, animals, birds, trees rendered mid-motion, that became the studio's signature and drew international attention, including a 1992 tribute exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution. Setrag Balian Sr., who trained under English potter Raymond Finch in Gloucestershire, brought Western forms like teapots and handled cups into the workshop's repertoire. Today the studio is run by Neshan Balian Jr., a fourth-generation family member, continuing hand-thrown pottery and tile production using inherited glaze recipes.