Page 98 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

34 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

Wedesigns in black under a beautiful green glaze. are getting

used to surprises in connection with T'ang pottery, and probably

in a year's time painted T'ang wares, which are now only accepted

with reserve, will be an established fact which passes without

comment.
Stamped patterns are not uncommon, and we often find small

rings or concentric circles, singly, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 11, or

stamped in clusters of five or seven, forming rosettes ^ ; or, again,
impressed key fret, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 12, which has a deep leaf

green glaze.

The influence of the Western Asiatic civilisations has been
already mentioned in casual hints, but it appears in concrete form
in the peculiar shape of the ewer on Plate 9. The bird-headed
vessel is found in Persian pottery of an early date, one example

of which may be seen in the British Museum. Another remark-

able instance of this form was illustrated and discussed by Dr.

Martin in the Burlington Magazine, September, 1912. ^ It had,

in addition, applied relief ornaments of a kind which we have

already noticed, and Dr. Martin expressed his opinion that both

the form and the ornaments are nearly related to Sassanian metal
work. The fact that the last Sassanid king sought help from China ^
points to intercourse between the two realms, and in any case

the northern trade route through Turkestan into Western Asia
gave ample opportunity for the traffic in Persian and Sassanian

wares. But more remarkable still is the classical spirit displayed

in the piping boy and dancing girH on a wonderful flask in the
Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 13, Fig. 2). The Graeco-Buddhist
influence on early Chinese sculpture has already been remarked, and
several classical designs are commonly pointed out on the T'ang

metal mirrors ; but here we have in pottery a figure which might
have been taken from a Herculaneum fresco, surrounded by scroll-
work worthy of the finest T'ang mirror. The body of the ware

^ The small rosettes which commonly occur in the inlaid Corean designs recall
these stamped T'ang patterns. Indeed the analogy between the Corean patterns in
general and those found on T'ang pottery is most significant.

2 It is now in the collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer.
' Yesdijird III., after his overthrow by the Arabs in 641, fled to Mer\% and there
appealed for aid to the Chinese Emperor. He does not appear to have fled for refuge

to China, as has been sometimes asserted.

•• The classical prototype is seen in a vase in the Fourth Vase Room (Case C) in the

British Museum, on which we find two similar figures in relief surrounded by a grape

vine scroll.