Page 70 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

30 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

given for its use in porcelain decoration, and its colour was
found to be " antique and splendid." Hence the great esteem
in which the blue and white of the period was held.^ The merit

of this new Mohammedan blue was its deep colour, and the
choicest kind was known as "Buddha's head blue" (Fo Vou

ch'ing). Its use at this period was not confined to the Imperial
factor}^ for we read that the workmen stole it and sold it to
the private manufacturers. In the following reign a method of
weighing the material was instituted, which put an end to this

pilfering.

Some account has already been given ^ of this material and its
use in combination with the commoner native mineral blue. It was,
no doubt, the blue used on Persian, Syrian and Egyptian pottery
of the period exported by the Arab traders. One of the oldest
routes ^ followed by Western traders with China was by river (prob-
ably the Irrawady) from the coast of Pegu, reaching Yung-ch'ang,
in Yunnan, and so into China proper. This will explain the oppor-
tunities enjoyed by the viceroy of Yunnan. There were, of course,
other lines of communication between China and Western Asia
by sea and land, and a considerable interchange of ideas had passed
between China and Persia for several centuries, so that reflex influ-

ences are traceable in the pottery of both countries. Painting in
still black under a turquoise blue glaze is one of the oldest Persian

methods of ceramic decoration, and we have seen that it was closely
paralleled on the Tz'u Chou wares (vol. i, p. 103).

It is related that a thousand Chinese artificers were trans-

planted to Persia by Hulagu Khan (1253-1264), and it is prob-
able that they included potters. At any rate, the Chinese
dragon and phoenix appear on the Persian lustred tiles of the
fourteenth century. At a later date Shah Abbas (1585-1627)
settled some Chinese potters in Ispahan. Meanwhile, quantities
of Chinese porcelain had been traded in the Near East, where it
was closely copied by the Persian, Syrian and Egyptian potters
in the sixteenth century. The Persian pottery and soft porce-

lain of this time so closely imitates the Chinese blue and white
that in some cases a very minute inspection is required to detect
the difference, and nothing is commoner than to find Persian ware

1 This account is quoted from the Shih wu kan chu, published in 1591.

" See p. 12.

2 See Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, p. 179.