Page 53 - Export Porcelain and Globakization- GOOD READ

taste.
As already pointed out, the Middle East started to be the main destination for the
export of Chinese ceramics during the Chinese Tang dynasty, gained momentum
during the Mongolian Yuan dynasty and reached its peak with the improvement of the
sea roads in the 16th century. During that time Vietnamese ceramics were also
exported to Islamic countries. The Mongolian dynasty in China played a crucial role
not only in facilitating the trade between China and Islamic countries by its open-door
policy within the immense empire, but also because the production of blue and white
porcelain began under the Mongolian rulership. The cobalt based color used in the
kilns of Jiangxi province from the year 1320 on was imported from Iran, where the
underglaze blue decoration originated. Underglaze painting techniques were used by
Iranian potters in the city of Kashan probably 100-120 years earlier than in China.
And it is likely that it was the demand for underglaze blue ceramics from the Middle
East which prompted the beginning of a ceramic style which later became the
synonym for porcelain worldwide. Persia and the biggest part of Islamic Asia
belonged to the Il-Khanate and was part of the Mongolian empire when the import of
blue and white porcelain begun. That blue and white porcelain was initially mainly
produced for trading purposes can also be evidenced by the fact that domestically it
did not play an important role until the first quarter of the 15th century when the Ming
court acknowledged it as imperial ware. Most Chinese customers in the 14th century
still preferred the monochrome celadons. And still under the early Ming Emperors
many Chinese blue and white pieces are actually copies of Arabic or Ottoman vessels
or vases made of brass.
Kashan and Nishapur in Iran were the most productive ceramic centers in the
Islamic lands from the 9th to 14th century. Kashan is not only famous for the
underglaze paintings but also for producing beautiful and mysterious blue and
turquoise monochromes, lusterware having a color shiny as metal and it is known for
inventing fritware - a technical innovation of an artificial siliceous paste. Fritware is a
composite material made from quartz sand mixed with small amounts of finely
ground glass and some clay. When fired, the glass frit melts and binds the other
components together. Fritware is not porcelain but it shares some of its features. The
artificial paste can be thrown to produce a very thin wall which normally cannot be
achieved with stoneware or terracotta. Black decorated pieces under a turquoise glaze
and lusterware, produced in the early 13th century, were also found in the city of
Raqqa in Syria – the former capital of the caliph Harun al Rashid, and nowadays,
unfortunately more known as the capital of the terrorist so-called “Islamic State”. The
kilns of Nishapur in Iran produced in the 10th century terracotta painted in green,
yellow and brown under a transparent glaze which reminds very much of the three
color ceramics of the Tang dynasty. However, since the Tang pottery was mainly used
as funeral decoration and no export pieces have been found in Iran, it is still unclear
how the exchange of the three splash color decoration took place.
The gold and bronze shining lustre painting technique was invented, most probably,
in Iraq under the Abbasid caliphate in the 9th century. The lusterware was a luxury
good given the fact that it was difficult and expensive to produce. During the Fatimid
period (909-1171) lustre painting was also adopted in Egypt. The kilns of Old Cario
(Fustat) have produced mainly lusterware. The import of Chinese blue and white
porcelain during the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (1250 – 1517) has also influenced
local potters to imitate blue and white ceramics. Next to hundreds of thousands of
sherds of Chinese origin, Mamluk blue and white fritware and Faience has been
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excavated in Cairo and in Syria. Many of these pieces are now part of the al-Sabah
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