Page 33 - Yuan Dynasty Ceramics

Chapter 07 (pp. 330-385)_Layout 1 7/7/10 5:42 PM Page 362

represented are molded Ding dishes, Ge ware censers porcelain and now generally referred to as qinghua (blue
coarser yet similar to the example in the Asia Society, painted), is mentioned fifteen times; chuzhou (or
painted and black-glazed Cizhou wares, and Jian black- Longquan celadon) seven times; celadon (qing) four
glazed tea bowls, the finest of which were produced in times; and qingbai three times. 123
the twelfth century and were highly prized by tea enthusi- Numerous other literary references to blue and white
asts in Japan. demonstrate its popularity at the time, particularly in
Another Yuan ship that is believed to have sailed out Southeast Asia. The travel diary of Moroccan scholar Ibn
of Ningbo, and which sank in the Bohai Sea near Batuta (1307–1377), written in 1355, confirms the pres-
Suizhong in northeast China’s Liaoning province, has ence of Chinese porcelain in Damascus in the early four-
also yielded significant discoveries. The ship, twenty- teenth century. Leaving Morocco in 1325 and finally
three yards long and tentatively dated to 1279–1333, is arriving at Quanzhou in 1345, Batuta later visited
believed to have been bound for Korea, Japan, or both Fuzhou, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou. He claimed that
because it carried a cargo of iron objects and Cizhou ce- the porcelain bazaar at Guangzhou was the largest, and
ramics, both of which were common exports to these served as the launching point for exports to other parts
two countries. 120 of China, India, and Yemen “from country to country till
These are just two of the Yuan dynasty ships that were it reaches us in Morocco. It [Chinese porcelain] is cer-
part of a long tradition of trade between China and the tainly the finest of all pottery-ware.” 124
other kingdoms in Asia and Africa. In 750, the Priest Impressive collections of Yuan (and later Ming) blue
Ganjin (687–763), founder of the Toshodaiji Temple in and white wares were accumulated by the Safavid shahs
Nara, Japan, described Guangzhou (old Canton in pres- of Persia and the Ottoman sultans. Large quantities have
ent-day Guangdong province) as a port with countless also been found in the ruins of Damascus and Fustat (old
Indian, Persian, and Indonesian trade ships. Many Arab Cairo). Indeed archaeological evidence of the trade is to be
accounts from the ninth to the eleventh centuries also found throughout Asia, the Middle East, and east Africa.
mention Guangzhou and the fine clay used by the Chi- A growing number of shipwreck sites have supplemented
nese to produce porcelain. 121 And in a book written be- these finds on land. One of these, a discovery in 2004 in
tween 1111 and 1117, Zhu Yu (son of the governor of the Red Sea of high-quality Yuan blue and white, included
Guangzhou) reported that “the greater part of the cargo dishes as large as 50 centimeters in diameter. 125
(on ships out of Quanzhou in present-day Fujian
province) consists of pottery, the small pieces packed
within the larger, till there is not one crevice left.” 122 Porcelain for the Yuan Imperial Court:
Yuan commerce far exceeded the flourishing Song A New Function for Imperial Kilns
trade, and the tribute owed on each Yuan sale had a
healthy if not indispensable effect on the treasury. Khubilai followed the Song model in establishing an im-
Quanzhou, identified by some as Marco Polo’s Zaytun, perial kiln, but his kiln at Jingdezhen had a radically dif-
was an important fourteenth-century port for the porce- ferent purpose than did earlier imperial kilns. The
lain trade. As mentioned previously, a large Muslim mer- Northern Song imperial kiln is surmised to have emerged
chant community lived there during the Yuan period, to expedite production of official (guan) celadon wares
with the largest contingent being from Il-Khan Persia. for court ceremonies with “a body made of refined clay
One sailor from Quanzhou, Wang Dayuan, who made and a clear brilliant glaze.” It is believed that the North-
two major voyages out of Quanzhou between the years ern Song imperial kiln, known as the Inner Kiln (Neiyao),
of 1328 and 1339, recorded in 1349 the types of Chinese was located within the palace precincts in Bianjing (present
goods desired by ninety-nine places, mostly in Southeast day Kaifeng, Henan province) to ensure that wares were
Asia, in the Daoyi zhilue (A brief account of the island for- available for ritual ceremonies paying homage to heaven,
eigners). Forty-five destinations preferred Chinese ce- earth, and the ancestors. Tang dynasty (618–907) records
ramics, and there are sixty-eight ceramic entries in Wang’s note that it was common for ceramics desired by the
travelogue. Sometimes the types of wares desired are court to be supplied by private kilns as tribute. 126 During
mentioned specifically; other times a preferred shape is the Song dynasty, the kilns of Ding, Xing, Yueh,
indicated, and once only the generic term porcelain (ciqi) Jingdezhen, Yaozhou, and Jian not only paid taxes, but
is used. Of the specified types, qingbai hua (painted qing- also supplied desired tribute wares. Records confirm that
bai), understood to be an early name for blue and white even after the establishment of the Northern Song

362 Yuan Dynasty Ceramics