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Part II POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
Chapter 9. Persia and neighbouring countries
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IN Persia and other Near East countries pottery had been made for many
centuries, and while the majority of Europe was in a state of barbarism,
attractive wares were being made with brilliantly coloured glazes and with
designs incised or painted. The Persians rediscovered the art of tin-glazing, a
technique used by the Assyrians, and were masters in the use of coloured lustres
by the end of the twelfth century. Both of these processes reached Europe later
by way of the Moors in Spain.
Many types of Chinese wares were exported to the Near East countries, and there
was a constant interchange of ideas; the Chinese learned of painting in
underglaze blue from the Persian potters at Kashan, and the Persians made
imitations of their favourite Chinese celadon glazes. Following the important
Persian Exhibition held in London in 1931, scholars have turned their attention
to the earlier wares, and attempts are being made to trace a sequence of styles
and to discover exactly where the various types were made.
Excavations carried out at the end of the nineteenth century first revealed the
beauty of these Islamic wares which had then been long forgotten. Ironically,
beautiful as so many of them are, most have been restored from fragments found
discarded in rubbish-pits in Persia and Egypt. Good examples are,
understandably, rare, and poor ones skilfully made up from two or more articles
with a generous helping of plaster and paint are to be guarded against.
Most of the wares made in Persian and nearby pottery centres from the fourteenth
century onwards are versions of earlier types and show less originality.
Imitations of Ming blue-and-white, with thick glaze and a very runny blue, are
sometimes mistaken for Chinese.
To the north-west of Persia, in Turkey, a distinctive pottery was made. It has a
sandy body coated with white slip, decorated with painting of formal floral or
leaf patterns outlined in black and coloured in a distinctive thick red, bright
green and blue. It dates from about the sixteenth century. This ware was once
thought to be of Persian origin, later said to have come from the Island of
Rhodes and known as 'Rhodian' ware, but is now accepted as having been made
principally at Isnik, a town to the south of Istanbul.
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