Page 93 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

THE CELADON

or fluted, others have ornaments in relief in good taste.

Petis de la Croix mentions another coloured porcelain in his

translation of the "Thousand and One Nig"hts," the

Martabani. " Six old slaves," he writes, less richly

dressed than those who were seated, immediately appeared ;

they distributed mahramas [blue squares of stuff used to

wipe the fingers], and served shortly afterwards, in a large

basin of martabani [green porcelain], a salad composed of

whey, lemon-juice, and slices of cucumber." Chardin cites
Hea green porcelain, which seems to be the same.
writes :

" Everything at the king's is of massive gold or porcelain.

There is a kind of green porcelain so precious that one dish

alone is worth four hundred crowns. They say this porce-

lain detects poison by changing colour, but that is a fable :

its price arises from its beauty and the delicacy of the mate-

rial, which renders it transparent, although above two crowns

in thickness." This last peculiarity has a great importance.

It is impossible to suppose travellers would here allude to

the sea-green celadon of which we have spoken above this,
;

laid upon a brown, close paste, approaching stone-ware, is

never translucent. In the martabani, on the contrary, a

thin, bright green glaze is applied upon a very white biscuit,
which allows the light to appear through. It is most won-

derful that a material so esteemed, and of so high a price, is

not more common in our collections. Its name, on the

other hand, leaves no doubt of its Persian nationality.

Martaban (Mo-tama) is one of the sixteen states which com-

posed the ancient kingdom of Siam ; it may not be impossi-
ble, then, that we must restore to this kingdom the porcelain

mentioned in the Arabian story. (Dr. Hirth's translation.)

M. Jacquemart's description of the martabani is

imaginative. His difficulty in attributing transpar-
ency to any specimen of Chinese celadon would have

disappeared had he remembered that among celadons

(to be presently spoken of) manufactured at Ching-

te-chen during the Ming period, many had a genuine
porcelain pate and were translucid. As for the the-

63