Formerly, in all general accounts of the potter's art, it was the custom
to pass over the period between the fall of the Roman empire and the
appearance of the beautiful Persian and Syrian pottery of the early
middle ages, as if the intervening centuries had produced nothing worthy
of note. Even yet the successive steps by which this beautiful art arose
are largely matters of inference and deduction, but it must be borne in
mind that while the Greeks and Romans made singularly little use of
glaze and painted colour, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of Syria and
Mesopotamia had long been noted for their skill in this direction. In
discussing the pottery of these peoples we have already pointed out at
what a very early period they had developed the production of rich and
beautiful coloured glazes--the Egyptians as a jewel-like decoration of
small pieces made in a very sandy paste, or actually carved from stone,
and the Assyrians, on a bolder scale, in their glazed and coloured
brickwork. Though the Egyptian and Syrian empires were overthrown, the
peoples of these countries remained; and, as we are now aware, carried
on their traditional craft, though in a less splendid way. There is
abundant evidence that pottery was made in the Egypt of Roman times and
later with rich turquoise blue and yellow glazes, though the potters had
learned to produce this glaze on a material containing more clay and
less sand than that used in earlier days. We know also that they had
learned that the addition of lead oxide to a glaze enabled such glaze to
be applied on vessels formed from clay which was sufficiently plastic to
be shaped on the wheel. This knowledge was not confined to Egypt, but
appears to have been spread over Syria and parts of Asia Minor; and
throughout the Byzantine empire many forms of pottery were made which
were clearly the starting-points of much of the fine pottery produced in
Europe in later times. We find, for instance, side by side, a
manufacture of bowls, dishes and vases of very simple shape, yet made of
two distinct materials: (1) a whitish sandy body on which turquoise
blue, green or even white glaze, consisting mainly of silicates of soda
and lime, was used either without ornament or with simple painted
patterns in black or cobalt blue under the glaze; (2) similar vessels
made of a lightish red clay, also rather sandy and porous, coated with a
white slip (pipeclay or impure kaolin) covered with a yellowish lead
glaze. These vessels were decorated in a variety of ways: (1)
_Graffiati_; patterns cut or scratched through the coating of white slip
while it was still soft, down to the red ground, so that when the vessel
was glazed it displayed a pattern in dark upon a light ground. (2)
Yellow and red ochre and copper scales were rudely "dabbed" over the
white slip surface, so that when the vessel was glazed it presented a
marbled or mottled appearance with touches of red, yellow, brown or
green, on a yellowish-white ground. (See the section on _Egyptian
pottery_ above.) (3) Oxides of copper or iron were added to the lead
glaze, and the resulting green or yellow glazes were applied to plain
vases or to vessels decorated with moulded reliefs. In all these methods
we see the continuation of old tradition in simpler forms, but we shall
also see that these, in their turn, became the starting-point of much of
the medieval pottery of Europe, particularly of Italy and the other
southern countries.
In the same way, a little farther east, the Persians of Sassanian times
seem to have preserved some of the traditions of the potters of Assyria,
just as they inherited their skill; and the Assyrian device of raising
strong brown outlines round a design to control the flow of coloured
glazes, which is exemplified in the Frieze of Archers in the Louvre, was
carried on by them, for it appears unchanged in the tiles of the Mosque
of Mahommed I. built at Brusa in the 15th century. The intercourse
between the Persian and Byzantine empires at this time must have led to
a general diffusion of technical knowledge among the pottery centres of
the various countries round the eastern end of the Mediterranean, though
our knowledge is too fragmentary to furnish sufficient data for any
definite placing of the progress made. Our information is mainly derived
from the examination of the rubbish mounds at Fostat, or Old Cairo, in
Egypt, by Dr Fouquet, and by eager inquirers like Henry Wallis. Fostat
was built in A.D. 640 by Amr and destroyed in the 12th century;
partially rebuilt, it was given over to pillage in 1252 by a Mameluke
sultan, and all that remains is the Old Cairo of to-day, the rest of the
site being covered with accumulated rubbish heaps. In the same way
Rhagae or Rai, one of the ancient capitals of Persia, the site of which
lies a few miles east of Teheran, was destroyed about 1220 by Jenghiz
Khan. Like Fostat it was partially rebuilt, but was destroyed again in
the following century, so that its existence practically ceased in the
14th century. Rhagae was once an important centre of the ceramic
industry, but this was transferred to the neighbouring town of Veramin,
in the 13th century. Excavations have also been made on the site of
Rakka, near Aleppo, in Syria, and from all these sources, and a few
others of minor importance, much interesting light has been thrown on
the development of the potter's art in these countries during the period
between the 4th and 12th centuries. Yet, until systematic excavations
have been made in Persia, Anatolia, Syria and the Delta, on the same
scale as those which have proved so valuable in Greece, Crete, Cyprus
and the valley of the Nile, we cannot hope to possess sound
chronological data of the developments of the arts in these countries.
Meantime the exact share which should be allotted to each district for
its discoveries will remain ground of contention for scholars of
conflicting schools, though there can be little doubt that Egypt and the
southern part of Syria played a more important part than has generally
been supposed in the development of the potter's art at this period.
_Persian Pottery_.--The most important pottery of the nearer East,
whether considered on its own merits or from the influence it has
exercised on the pottery of later times, is that so highly valued by
collectors under the distinctive name of Persian; though much that
passes under that name may not have been made in Persia. From the 10th
to the 16th centuries the craftsmen of Persia were perfect masters of
decorative design and colour; and, as potters, they possessed a sense of
the forms proper to clay, such as none of the great races of antiquity
ever exhibited. The shapes of Greek pottery speak more strongly of metal
than of clay, but the best Persian work exhibits a feeling for the
material that has rarely been equalled. The shapes are not only true
clay-shapes but they are designed so as best to exhibit the qualities of
the glaze and colour with which they were to be decorated. Certainly
from the 12th to the 16th centuries the pottery of the Persians must
rank among the greatest achievements of the potter's art. The ware was
shaped from various mixtures such as we have already spoken of--but
whether its body was a mixture of white clay with a large proportion of
sand, or some inferior clay that burnt to a yellowish or red tint, and
was surfaced with a fine white coating of siliceous slip, or with a
mixture of soda-glass, clay and oxide of tin, which made it whiter
still--the one aim was to produce a white pottery. On this white
ground--with a coarsish absorbent surface--beautiful patterns, in
conventional floral or animal forms, were deftly painted in
cobalt-blues, manganese-purples, copper-greens and turquoise, with
mixtures for intermediate tints; while a strong brownish-black outline
colour was compounded by mixing the oxides of iron and manganese, to be
turned into a fine, still black by the addition of a trace of cobalt and
later of oxide of chromium. Over this freely painted colour, often used
in broad flat masses, a singularly limpid alkaline glaze, generally of
considerable thickness, was fired until it just fused; and the resultant
effect is of the most rich and brilliant colour relieved on a ground of
slightly toned white. Judging from fragments which have been found at
Rai, and which can scarcely therefore be later than the 13th century, we
find the characteristic Persian style of ornament already developed;
dumpy little figures kneeling, standing or riding on grass between
cypress trees, or animals and birds similarly disposed, with
conventional borders and bands of Cufic inscriptions. Another well-known
type of pattern consists of highly conventionalized floral ornament
which often runs to a beautiful tracery of "arabesque" lines. The
drawing is generally finely outlined with brown or black (a survival of
the ancient Assyrian practice), and in the earliest pieces the flat
washes of colour are laid in only in cobalt-blue, turquoise or green
from copper, and shades of purple and brown from manganese. From the
16th century onwards Chinese influence is strongly felt both in the
designs and in the colour schemes, particularly in the wares painted
with patterns in blue only (fig. 39), which sometimes carry the
imitation of Chinese porcelain so far as to bear forged Chinese marks.
Finally, Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629) is said to have brought a number of
Chinese artificers, among them many potters, to Ispahan, and we find
that Chinese porcelain was largely painted at King-tê-Chên, with blue
decorations in the Persian taste, so that we cannot be surprised at the
growth of a hybrid Perso-Chinese style of decoration. From this period,
however, Persian pottery deteriorated both in its technical and artistic
aspects. Crudely moulded figures in fairly high relief, coloured with
an opaque yellow and green as well as with transparent blue and
turquoise, began to make their appearance, especially on the famous
Persian tiles; and in the 18th century the brown and black outlines of
the drawing (a most valuable decorative resource) vanish, and we get
brighter and more glittering, yet poorer colours, including a rose-red
enamel fired over the glaze, evidently imitated from the Chinese
_famille-rose_ porcelains of the 18th century.
The finest work appears to have been produced from the 11th to the 14th
centuries; yet so imperfect is our knowledge of what is truly Persian,
Syrian or Egyptian, that we are forced to accept many conventional names
that have perhaps little but custom to recommend them. There is, for
instance, an important class of pottery known, until recently, only from
a few remarkably handsome vases, and once called "Siculo-Arab" because
these few examples had been mostly found in Sicily. This ware is
characterized by its fine quality and its distinguished
ornament--leaf-shaped panels with arabesques; interlacing patterns;
striped and dotted bands; friezes of animals or birds amidst flowers and
foliage, inscriptions, &c.; all strongly and firmly drawn in black or
brown outlines and washed in with a very pure cobalt-blue or with
turquoise. In spite of the resemblance of these pieces to the oldest
Persian wares, we know that bowls, dishes, vases and spoilt pieces of
the same kind have been dug up on the site of Rakka near Aleppo; similar
ware has been found at Fostat, together with evidences of local
manufacture, and occasional pieces have been brought from Persia; so
that probably this distinguished ware was made at Rakka in Syria between
the 9th and the 13th centuries, and was afterwards made by Syrian
potters both in Persia and Egypt.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Persian Plate painted in blues only. (Victoria
and Albert Museum.)]
_Other Persian Wares_.--We have already spoken of the prevalent use of
coloured glazes in all the countries of the nearer East--from Egypt to
Persia--from remote times, either as the sole colour decoration or in
conjunction with modelled or painted ornament. The fragments from Rai
and Fostat include rich turquoise glazes (derived from the ancient
Egyptian), deep and light-green glazes containing lead and copper,
imitations of ancient Chinese céladon-green, a brownish-purple glaze, a
coffee-brown glaze and a deep cobalt-blue glaze.[10] All these may be
found either on plain vases, or on vessels with modelled ornament; or
covering delicate floral or arabesque patterns painted in white slip or
incised in the paste. Sometimes, even at this early period, there are
traces of applied gold-leaf attached, but not fired, to the glaze.
At a very early period, too, we find those beautiful bowls, dishes and
vases decorated with geometrical or arabesque patterns in a singularly
still underglaze black, and covered with the blue turquoise or green
copper glazes. This characteristic and beautiful ware is common to
Persia, Syria and Egypt in Saracen times, and it was soon prized in
Europe, as is shown by the famous fragment found by the late Mr Drury
Fortnum built into the outer walls of S. Cecilia in Pisa, where it was
apparently placed in the 12th century.[11]
At a later date a shining black glaze made its appearance, and in the
13th century pale and lapis-lazuli blues, while there is a comparatively
modern sage-green glaze found only on pieces bearing patterns modelled
in low relief.
_Persian Porcelain_.--This beautiful and somewhat mysterious ware--often
called "Gombroon" ware--apparently made its appearance in the 13th
century, though the bulk of the known examples are not earlier than the
17th or 18th century. The ware is quite translucent and is of soft and
delicate texture. Unlike Chinese porcelain, it was made from a mixture
of pipe-clay and glass, and was glazed with a soft lead glaze; so that a
fragment of it would melt to an opaque glass in an ordinary porcelain
oven. It is principally met with in the form of dishes, bowls (often
mounted on feet) and saucers. The pieces are generally very thin and are
either perfectly plain or bear flutings or simple wavy patterns incised
in the paste. Most characteristic and beautiful is the decoration by
means of delicate perforations either straight or lozenge-shaped. In the
finest pieces the perforations are filled with glaze, and then they form
a decoration analogous to the well-known "rice-grain" decoration of the
Chinese. Occasional pieces are found decorated with colour, either a
delicate green, producing an effect like pale bright céladon, or the
well-known Persian blue ground; and this is sometimes decorated with
lustre patterns. Nowhere can this rare and delicately beautiful ware be
so well studied as in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
_Lustred Ware_.--The decoration of pottery with iridescent metallic
films is one of the most astonishing and beautiful inventions ever made
by the potter. Hitherto we have seen only coloured clays, coloured
glazes, or colours fired under the glaze, but we are now brought face to
face with a colour effect produced by refiring the finished glazed
pieces, at a lower temperature, with pigments painted upon the glaze
(fig. 40; see also Plate V. 13th-century Persian lustre). How such a
practice originated is probably an idle speculation, but it may have
come through repeated attempts to decorate pottery with gold. If gold
was painted under the glazes of these ancient vases, it would probably
vanish and leave no trace; but gold, alloyed with much silver, applied
over the finished glaze and refired, in the attempt to make it adhere,
may have given the first films of iridescent colour. We know certainly
that before the 13th century the elements of the process had been
mastered, and that the potters of the nearer East had learnt that by
mixing some compound of silver (doubtless the sulphide) with clay, and
painting the mixture on the finished vase, which was refired in such a
way that the pieces were only raised to a dull red heat and were then
exposed to the vapours of the wood-fuel, glowing lustrous patterns were
left on the ware that looked like metal--but metal shot over with all
the hues of the rainbow, golden, rosy, purple and green. Numerous
fragments of this lustred pottery had been disinterred from the site at
Rhagae, and it was therefore assumed that the beautiful process was of
Persian origin, particularly as most of the examples then known bore
designs of distinctly Persian style. We are now inclined to think that
the process really arose in Egypt or in Syria, and was carried eastward
to Persia, just as it was afterwards carried westward to Spain. In
support of this view there is the written record of the Persian
traveller Nasiri Khosrau, who visited Old Cairo in the 11th century
(1035-1042). He was apparently familiar with the pottery of his own
country, and notes all the novel forms that he found in the bazaars of
Old Cairo, which was both a great trading emporium for the traffic of
East and West, and a pottery centre of note. He mentions, specially,
certain translucent bowls of earthenware decorated with colours
resembling a stuff called "bougalemoun," "the tints changing according
to the position which one gives to the vase." Such a description could
only apply to "lustred" pottery, and it would seem as if this process
must have been known in Egypt or Syria before it was practised in Persia
(see Plate V., 13th-century Syro-Persian). In any case the secret was
soon carried to Persia, for we have ample evidence that it was practised
at Rhagae in the next century.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Persian Ewer, white ground, with pattern in
brown copper lustre; the upper part has a blue ground. The mounting is
gilt bronze, Italian 16th-century work. (British Museum.)]
The earliest dated example of Persian lustred ware is a star-shaped tile
of the year A.D. 1217 (A.H. 614), decorated with spotted hares,
heraldically confronted, in a ground of lustre relieved by dots and
curls, and surrounded by an inscribed border. A vase in the Godman
collection bears the date A.D. 1231 (A.H. 629), and some of the
well-known "star and cross" tiles from Veramin belong to the year A.D.
1262. The early Persian lustre is chiefly known to us through the tiles
with which the walls of mosques and public buildings were decorated; the
more ephemeral vases, bowls and dishes have survived in smaller numbers
and very rarely in perfect condition. Common motives of decoration were
animals and birds (sometimes showing Chinese influence), the hare and
the deer being favourites; roughly drawn sack-like figures of men and
women, mounted or on foot (probably heroes of Persian legend),
conventional foliage and arabesques. The designs are usually reserved in
a lustred ground, which is relieved by small scrolls, curls and dots
etched in the lustre (as though the glazed piece had been covered all
over with the lustre mixture and the ornament scratched out of this when
it was dry), and showing beneath the ivory-white tin-enamel with which
the early wares are generally coated. The lustre itself when viewed
directly may look like some golden or deep chocolate-brown colour, but
as the piece is turned to catch a side-light this deep colour is seen to
bear a thin iridescent film, which glows with golden, green, purple or
ruby-red metallic _reflets_. On the earliest examples the decoration is
often entirely in lustre, but later, lustre is often used to eke out a
pattern painted with masses of pale cobalt-blue or turquoise under the
glaze. Similar tiles with rather more elaborate ornament bear
14th-century dates, and another variety has parts of the decoration,
more particularly the large letters of the inscriptions, raised in low
relief and heightened with blue. Yet another class, belonging to the
14th century, has a fine dark-blue alkaline glaze, with designs in low
relief, picked out with scrolls and arabesques in white enamel or bold
floral sprays in leaf-gold. Lustre is frequently found applied to the
rich cobalt-blue ground, and there are still existing a few magnificent
vases which show the artistic possibilities of this scheme of
decoration. It should be noted that when the pieces are in the round,
the pattern is usually painted in lustre and not reserved in a lustre
ground as on the flat tiles. In the later examples the tin-enamel was
replaced entirely by white slip, and the lustre decoration continued in
use until the end of the reign of Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629). To the last
period belong many charming bowls, narghilis, cups and dishes in a brown
lustre, with ruby _reflets_, on a white or a deep blue ground; this ware
is pure white in substance and generally translucent, and the pieces are
occasionally signed (see _Persian porcelain_ above).
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--Lamp from the Mosque of Omar.]
_Damascus Ware_.--This time-honoured name (for "Damas Ware" was often
mentioned in medieval inventories, and appears to have included many
varieties of oriental pottery which were highly prized in Italy, France
and England in the middle ages)[12] forms rather a puzzle nowadays for
the archaeologist, for many diverse wares have been included under this
title, some of which were not made at Damascus. Yet Damascus is one of
the oldest cities in the world, and has seen unnumbered dynasties come
and go around its desert-fringed oasis. An important centre of caravan
traffic, a nexus of palpitating life from east and west, north and
south, we cannot wonder if it developed a special pottery of its own,
tinged with something of a cosmopolitan spirit. Formerly the Damascus
wares were treated as a variety of the Persian pottery we have just
described, but the best examples of the class now known under this name
exhibit a mingling of various influences such as we might expect, and
have well-marked affinities both with the Persian wares and those
brilliant productions now commonly recognized as Syrian and Turkish,
while even far-off echoes of Chinese decorative mannerisms are not
wanting. The characteristic Damascus ware of the collector is marked by
its quality; the ground is of very clear white, the colours are pure and
brilliant, and the vessels, whether dishes or vases, are soundly made.
The decoration, which is purely floral or conventional, recalls the more
formal Persian style, but the colours recall those of the Turkish
pottery with one remarkable substitution. The piled-up red-clay pigment
of the latter is absent, but where it would inevitably occur in the
design of a Turkish piece its place is taken by a purple made from
manganese, which is often thin and rather washy in quality. Fine
examples of this famous ware are to be seen in the British Museum and in
the Louvre; its characteristic style of pattern is well shown in the
16th-century Damascus piece reproduced in Plate V. Another splendid
example is the lamp from the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, also in the
British Museum (fig. 41); and this has generally been classed with the
Damascus wares, though its colouring and its technique belong rather to
Lower Syria or to Egypt. This magnificent piece bears a dated
inscription, "In the year 956 in the month _Jemazi-l-oola_. The painter
is the poor and humble Mustafa." This is reckoned as June A.D. 1549. It
may be remarked that our difficulties of identification are increased by
the fact that, under Arab rule, Syrian and Persian potters were at work
in Damascus, in Old Cairo and elsewhere. Among the Fostat fragments
classified by Dr Fouquet are many bearing the signatures of Syrian
workmen. In the 15th and 16th centuries, too, imitations of Chinese
blue-and-white porcelain became common throughout the nearer East, and
quantities of fragments have been found at Fostat, Ephesus and
elsewhere.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--Rhodian Jug.]
_Turkish Pottery_.--This beautiful and striking ware, formerly called
Persian, and till lately Rhodian because Rhodes was a known centre of
manufacture, seems to have been fabricated in all the countries overrun
by the Ottoman Turks in the 13th century, so that the name "Turkish," in
spite of some opposition, is now generally applied to it. (See fig. 42;
and the 16th-century Rhodian or Turkish pieces, Plate V.) It has a fine
white body of the usual sandy texture, covered, as a rule, with a wash
of pure white slip; it is painted in strong brilliant colours, chiefly
blue, turquoise, green, and a peculiar red pigment which is heaped up in
palpable relief--the whole of the ornament being outlined with black or
dark green. The ware was glazed with an alkaline glaze of great depth,
so that the colours soften and sometimes run, producing one of the most
brilliant and attractive of all the oriental wares. In certain districts
the white ground was not used, but over it a slip of the red colour
(Armenian bole), varying in strength from bright red to pale salmon, was
laid over the piece, reserving the pattern only in the white slip, which
consequently lies lower than the red ground. Other examples are known
where the ground has been covered with lavender, blue, sage, apple and
turquoise greens, chocolate or coffee-brown, and the sumptuous effect of
the whole was often increased by the application of gold-leaf over the
fired glaze. The decorative motives are distinguished from those of the
Persian wares by a breadth and boldness which are in keeping with the
brilliant, and not always harmonious, colouring. They include, it is
true, the Persian arabesque, the floral scroll with feathery leaf, the
thistle-bloom and the cypress tree, but the naturalistic treatment which
permits immediate recognition of the favourite Turkish flowers such as
the tulip, hyacinth, carnation, fritillary, cornflower and lily (some of
which were imported into Europe by the Turks), is as original and
distinctive as the arrangement of the different elements of the design
is artistic and charming. Other styles of design include formal patterns
and diapers, rarely human and animal figures, and occasionally armorial
devices and ships. Tiles of this ware were extensively used for lining
the walls of public buildings, replacing the carpets and textile
hangings which their designs so freely imitated. Of domestic articles,
dishes are the most numerous, though vases, ewers, sprinklers, jugs,
tankard-shaped flower-holders, covered bowls and mosque lamps are also
plentiful. The tiles are found in all parts of the Turkish empire,
though they were probably made at certain centres, such as Nicaea (which
gave its name to the ware in the 16th century and no doubt supplied many
of the mosques in Constantinople), Kutaia, Demitoka, Lindus and other
centres in Rhodes and Damascus. Individual wares cannot be
distinguished, except in some measure those of Damascus and Kutaia. A
small jug in the Godman Collection has an Armenian inscription stating
that it was made by "Abraham of Kutaia" in the 16th century. A few fine
bowls and vases, painted in a beautiful blue with Persian arabesques and
rosette scrolls, recalling Chinese porcelains of the Ming dynasty, but
of very characteristic appearance, are also attributed to this place;
and later, in the 18th and up to the end of the 19th century, an
inferior ware was largely manufactured here. This late ware usually
takes the form of small objects--plates, cups, jugs, egg-shaped
ornaments, &c.--with a thin, well-potted, white body and slight patterns
of radiating leaves, scale diapers, &c., in blue, black and yellow.
Turkish pottery was at its best in the 16th and the early part of the
17th century, and though good tile work of later date exists, the
general pottery deteriorated before the 18th century. An inferior ware
of poor colour is still produced in Turkey, Persia and Syria, and some
attempt has been made of late to revive the old lustre decoration, but
the results are not likely to be mistaken for those of old times.
_Collections_.--The Victoria and Albert Museum contains the finest
collection of the medieval pottery of the nearer East--the British
Museum collection, though much smaller, has some magnificent examples.
The Cluny Museum in Paris has a never-to-be-forgotten collection of
Turkish pottery, especially plates and dishes. The museums of the
Louvre and of Sèvres have also many beautiful examples. Berlin,
Frankfort and other German towns have collections, but much smaller in
extent. Private collectors in England and France own many fine
specimens, and mention may be made particularly of those owned by Mr
Ducane Godman and Mr George Salting.
LITERATURE.--Fortnum, _Majolica_ (1896) (also in South Kensington
Museum Handbook); Falke, _Majolica_ (Berlin, 1896); Fouquet,
_Contributions a l'étude de la céramique orientale_ (Cairo, 1900);
Karabacek, "Zur muslimischen Keramik," in _Monatsschrift fur den
Orient_ (1884); Lane-Poole, _Art of the Saracens in Egypt_ (1886);
Migeon, _Manuel de l'art musulman_, vol. ii. (1907); Sarre, _Persische
Keramik_; and _Jahrbuch der koniglichen preussichen Kunstsammlung_
(1905), part ii.; H. Wallis, _The Godman Collection_ (1) _Lustred
Vases_ (London, 1891); (2) _The Tenth Century Lustred Wall-tiles_
(1894); _Notes on some Early Persian Lustre Vases_ (1885); _Egyptian
Ceramic Art_ (1898). (R. L. H.; W. B.*)