BASIN, ENAMELLED WITH WHITE FLOWERS ON GOLD GROUND
INDIAN, SEVENTEENTH OR EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
Indian Glass.—The classical writers had a tradition that the best glass in the world was made in India, thanks above all to the use of a pure rock crystal in the manufacture. There are some vague references to glass in the later Sanscrit literature, and in one of the older, but not the oldest, of the Hindu books, a distinction is made between a vessel of glass and one made of crystal. But it would be useless to search in the Hindustan of to-day for any examples of so early a date. Apart from a few beads which may be assigned to Buddhist times,[[268]] I can point to no examples of Indian glass of earlier date than the Mogul dynasty. It is to that period—hardly, indeed, before the later seventeenth century—that we must attribute certain remarkable examples of glass, found for the most part in Delhi, which are now in the Indian Department at South Kensington. There may be seen an example of enamelled glass of great beauty ([Plate XLVIII.]). This is a vase of somewhat milky glass with spreading mouth, some eleven inches in diameter; it is described as a washing-basin; the gilt ground is semé with little white flowers, each with a red pistil. Of no less interest are the two hookah-bases of engraved white glass. On these the technique of the engraved work—but not the Oriental design of conventional flowers—much resembles that of the Bohemian cut-glass; there are no incised lines, and the oval depressions representing the leaves are carefully polished. Unlike the engraved glass of Persia, the work shows signs of a complete mastery of the process. It will be noticed that in the case of one of these vessels the clear cristallo is unchanged, while in the other the glass is, as it were, frosted, apparently by the incipient decay of the surface. In the same case may be seen some tall vases of thin white glass, of a type very similar to the Persian sprinklers. These also come from Northern India.
It would be useless to search for an early native origin for work of this kind. Were it, however, possible to find in India any glass that we could connect with the Turki Khanates of Bokhara and Samarkand, the old homes of the Mogul family, we should thereby be provided with a connecting link that would not unlikely carry us back to the Syrian enamelled glass of the fourteenth century (see above, p. [168]). But nothing of the kind, as far as I know, has so far turned up in Hindustan. On the whole, this Mogul glass, in spite of the exceptional artistic and technical qualities of the specimens just described, belongs to that bastard school of Saracenic art that is prevalent generally in the north of India. Its artistic parentage may probably be traced back to Venice by way of Persia. Equally Persian in character are the four-sided bottles painted with figures and flowers, somewhat in the style of the Cashmiri lacquer. A remarkable series of little flasks of this character, formerly in the Marryat collection, may be seen in the Indian Department at South Kensington, where, however, they are described as ‘Indo-Dutch.’
It is certainly disappointing to find in India such a total absence of native glass with any claim to antiquity. But some consolation may be derived from the discovery—for discovery it may be called—made not many years ago, that in more than one part of Hindustan, native craftsmen were turning out vessels of glass by a strangely primitive method. Sir Purdon Clarke, who has always had at heart the maintenance of the native industries of the country on the old lines, tells me that this modern Indian glass was first noticed at Calcutta, and with some difficulty traced to Patna. Here, by the most primitive methods, the native workmen were turning out among other things imitations of European lamp-glasses. The furnace consisted of a series of elaborate passages hidden beneath a heap of ashes. These chambers were originally formed by a scaffolding of cardboard frames which, when the arrangement was completed, were set on fire.
Somewhat more ambitious are the furnaces which Mr. H. C. Dobbs found in use in the neighbourhood of Benares and Lucknow (Journal of Indian Art, vol. vii.). The material here employed was either imported or ‘country’ glass, but we are not told how the latter was prepared. The little circular ovens, less than five feet in height, are rudely built up of clay; there are two cylindrical chambers back to back, each of two stories, but of the four compartments thus formed three are devoted to the gradual cooling of the wares. It seems doubtful whether in these furnaces the glass is ever thoroughly melted, and though use is certainly made, in a primitive way, of the blowing-tube, the method of working resembles rather the treatment of a piece of iron in the blacksmith’s forge. The glass is constantly reheated and patted and pressed.[[269]] We are, indeed, reminded of the preparation of the Egyptian glass of the Eighteenth Dynasty, as interpreted by Dr. Petrie (cf. p. [22]). How far the Indian glass-maker in his methods of work is carrying on an old native tradition, or how far he is merely adapting what he has learned from Persian or European glass-blowers to the exigencies of his surroundings, I must leave an open question. I think, however, that in nearly all cases his starting-point is either with a mass of imported ‘metal,’ or with fragments of broken glass.
In the Indian Department at South Kensington may be seen a most remarkable collection of this native glass, obtained in part from Patna and in part from Hoshiarpur, in the Punjab.[[270]] This glass is of the greatest interest and should be closely examined. It is for the most part of various shades of blue and green, but these shades seem to be due to copper rather than to iron; at least we do not meet with the well-known olive greens derived from the latter metal. But the most striking peculiarity—the charm, I may say—of this glass is due to the presence of minute bubbles, so numerous and closely packed that the glass is little better than translucent. To the presence of these bubbles is also due the peculiar waxy aspect of the surface, and this with the irregular outline lends to this simple ware a plastic appearance as if moulded by the hand. Some use is made also of an opaque yellow glass, and among the examples from Patna are some decorated with bands of lattimo. The shapes call for no special comment: I will only point to certain curious little scorpion-shaped scent-bottles with twisted tails, and to the large torque bangles, as worthy of notice. Of greater interest is the primitive arrangement for distilling—a combination of aludel and alembic that calls to mind the illustrations to the Syriac manuscripts that I have mentioned in a former chapter. Perhaps the principal charm of this native Indian glass arises from the violent contrast that it affords to the impeccable cristallo and to the flint-glass that have tyrannised over us so long in Europe. It is beginning at length to dawn upon us that there are other qualities than absolute transparency and absence of colour to be looked for in our material, and it is the attempt to bring these qualities into prominence that has led to the development in France within the last few years of quite a new treatment of glass.
Glass in China.[[271]]—There are frequent references in Chinese literature to a substance called liu-li, which the best authorities tell us may be regarded as a more or less opaque variety of glass. This liu-li is, in the old books, always closely associated with rock crystal and jade, and was, indeed, like these stones, classed among the ‘seven precious things’; we also find it described as ‘thousand year old ice.’ When towards the end of the first century of our era an attempt was made by the emperors of the Han dynasty to establish commercial relations with the Roman West, this liu-li was one of the substances most sought after. The Chinese of this time were, it would seem, acquainted with the Roman Empire, but probably only with the eastern provinces. The Ta-tsin of their early writers has been identified by Dr. Hirth with Syria, and its capital Antu with Antioch: in these parts at that time they would have had no difficulty in obtaining the glass that they were in search of. It is indeed not impossible that it may have been this new and exotic material that first turned their attention to the glazing of their pottery, for it is doubtful if they were acquainted with the process before this time.
Again, in the fifth century some merchants who visited North-west India are said to have learned there the secrets of glass-making, and on their return to China to have produced liu-li of all colours by the smelting of various minerals. Once more, in the thirteenth century, we hear of glass being made by the melting together of certain stones and drugs, and the word po-li—the name given generally to transparent glass, in opposition to the more or less opaque liu-li—is now used for the first time.