Page 171 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Lung-ch'iian yao 87

tioned, and much has been written^ of the veneration in which

old Chinese wares have always been held in the Philippines and

Borneo, and of the magic powers attributed to the old dragon

jars by the natives of these countries.

The green celadon was highly valued in India and Persia, where

it was reputed to have the power of disclosing the presence of

poison. An early reference to the Chinese porcelain occurs in the

writings of the Persian geographer Yacut,^ who mentions " four

boxes full of Chinese porcelain and rock crystal " among the effects

of a native of Dour-er-Racibi in Khouzistan, who died in 913 a.d.

The trade with Egypt is indicated in the much-quoted incident

of the gift of forty pieces of Chinese porcelain sent from Egypt

bv Saladin to Nur-ed-din in Damascus in 1171, and by the later

gift of porcelain vases sent in 1487 by the Sultan of Egypt to Lorenzo

Ade' Medici. large proportion of the celadons in our collections

has been brought and still comes from India, Persia, and Egypt. ^

The Sultan's treasure at Constantinople ^ teems A^ith celadons col-

lected in mediaeval times. Fragments of celadon are unearthed on

almost every important mediaeval site which is excavated in the

East. The British Museum has small collections of such frag-

ments from Bijapur in India, the island of Kais in the Persian Gulf,

Rhages in Persia, Ephesus, Rhodes, Cairo, and Mombasa, to men-

tion a few sites only. Fragments of celadon were found, in company

with Chinese coins ranging in date from 990-1111 a.d., by Sir John

Kirk and Lieut. C. Smith, near Kilwa in Zanzibar, and the former,

while British representative in Zanzibar, was able to form a con-

siderable collection of complete specimens which were treasured by

Athe natives with almost religious care. story told by Sir John

Kirk illustrates the attitude of the native mind towards these

Atreasured wares. celadon dish with particularly fine carving

was the subject of a family dispute, and to satisfy the rival claims

1 See A. B. Meyer, op. cit. ; Ling Roth, The Natives of Borneo; Carl Bock, Head

Hunters of Borneo; Fay-Cooper Cole, Chinese Pottery in the Philippines, Chicago

1912.

A* thirteenth-century -switer, one of whose works is translated by Barbier and

Maynard, Dictionnaire Geographique de la Perse. See p. 240 of this book. Fragments
of celadon porcelain were found on the ninth-century site of Samarra on the

Euphrates. (See p. 148.)

2 Much of the celadon found in Egypt would seem to be as late as the early part
of the sixteenth century, to judge from the general name given to it by Egyptian
merchants, " baba ghouri," after the sultan who reigned at that time,

* See E. Zimmermann in the Cicerone, III. Jahrgang, s. 496 fl.