Carolinda Tolstoy belongs to a family with long-established links to the Middle East and traces her lineage back to Leo Tolstoy, author of "War and Peace". She lives in London, is a countess and she has devoted her life to Islamic art.
Tolstoy occupies a unique position in the world of modern pottery. She has organized many exhibitions for her pottery, either solo or together with artists from England, Turkey, Kuwait, Greece, Iran and Iraq. Her latest well-attended exhibition was in London and was accompanied by the release of a book on the history of pottery that also traced the connections between Western and Islamic arts.
Tolstoy has studied and taught in both London and Paris and made many visits to pottery centers in Iran, Spain, Afghanistan, Turkey, Russia, Italy and Greece. In her work, she is influenced by Muslim artists, especially from the Middle East. This is especially evident in the use of flowers and geometric shapes reminiscent of 16th-century Ottoman art which give her creations a beauty all their own.
The strong influence of the Islamic past also manifests itself in the pieces of polished colored metal she embeds in some of her pieces - a technique first used by Muslim potters in the Abbasid era of the early ninth century.
Tolstoy's use of the tulip and an octagonal shape surrounding the main motif on her pottery also harks back to the past, but the pomegranates she often includes reflect her own touch - though often associated with the eastern Mediterranean, they were not used by Ottoman potters. Flowers have a particular significance in Tolstoy's early work, notably tulips and carnations. But over time her admiration for Ottoman art has given way to a love of the more austere Arabesque and geometric ornaments of Islamic art.
A unique synthesis of eastern and western art, Tolstoy's work represents a new chapter in the West's long fascination with Islamic art.
