Hakob Jughayets’i

Armenian, c. 1550 - 1613

BiographyHakob Jughayetsi was born in Julfa, Armenia around 1550 and died in Jew Julfa, Iran, around 1613. He was a pupil of bishop Zak’ria and worked with his master until Zak’ria died in 1576. Hakob’s hometown was an important trade city in the 16th century but not a center of manuscript production. Thus, the young artist left Julfa for Vaspurakan, a well-known place for book production and where his teacher Zak’ria worked in. Hakob finished the Pozzi Gospels in 1586 in Keghi and, hoping to find a buyer, traveled to Erzurum, an Ottoman city.

Armenia, particularly Julfa, was disputed by the Safavids and the Ottomans and was often a battleground between these two powerful rivals. In 1607, the Safavid ruler, Shah Abbas I, relocated the Armenian people to the Safavid mainland, resettling them in a city he built near his capital city, Isfahan, and called it New Julfa (after Julfa Armenia). Hakob spent the last years of his life in New Julfa. The date of the artist’s death is recorded in a colophon of a bible as 1613. This manuscript, which was also Hakob’s last work, was created in 1610 for Khaja Awatik in New Julfa.

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