Fig. 91.—Glazed Pottery of Sindh. (B.)
It may be said that in general the pottery of India is good in shape, colour, and decoration, the latter never violating its purpose, nor distracting the eye from the shape of the vessel. The designs are very simple, and repeating, perhaps to monotony in many cases; but the painted pottery decoration, by reason of its broad and direct application, although the ornament is very simple in character, is better, and less monotonous, for instance, than the Indian wood-carving decoration. The designs take the form of panels of flower and leaf ornament placed side by side, bands of guilloches, chevrons, running ornament, and lines, the knop-and-flower pattern, and a panel filling or an all-over decoration consisting of diapered flowers, leaves, or stars. The elegant shaped water bottle from Madura (Fig. 90) is pierced so that the air may circulate round the inner porous bowl. This ware is coloured a dark green or a golden brown glaze.
Fig. 92.—Glazed Pottery of Sindh. (B.)
The Sindh glazed pottery is beautiful, though very simple in colour and decoration. The colours are mostly blue of two or three shades, turquoise greens, and creamy whites, and sometimes the glaze is purple, golden brown, or yellow. Many of the vases are bulbous or oviform in shape, with wide necks and bottoms, and are decorated with the Sventi, or daisy-like flower (Fig. 91), or the lotus (Fig. 92).
Fig. 93—Enamelled Tile, from Sindh. (B.)
The enamelled tile from Sindh (Fig. 93) has a knop-and-flower decoration, the larger flower having the character of an iris, and, at the same time, something of the lotus flower in its composition.
CHAPTER II.
ENAMELS.
Enamelling is the art of applying a vitreous material to an object, as decoration, to the surface of which it is made to adhere by heat. Metals are the usual foundations to which enamels are applied, but stone, earthenware, and glass may be enamelled. When one speaks of “an enamel” we understand it to mean a metal that is ornamented by a vitreous decoration fused and fixed to the metal surface by heat. There are three principal kinds of enamels: the “embedded or encrusted,” the “translucent upon relief,” and the “painted.” Some enamelled objects have a mixture of two methods.