MODERN PERSIAN EWER (COPPER-COATED, WITH WHITE METAL).
South Kensington Museum contains a noble collection of Persian articles, ancient and modern, made for it in that country by Major E. Murdoch Smith, of the Royal Engineers. I say ancient and modern; but where an art has had a continuous evolution it would be perhaps more philosophical to pronounce its last results the oldest, and its “modern” period that in which it was newest. In no other part of this museum have I seen works which reminded me so much of that long conspiracy between man and nature by which wild-briers have turned to roses. It seemed to me there might be written on the walls this beautiful page of the “Rose Garden” of Sâdi: “I have heard that in the land of the East they are forty years in making a china cup: they make a hundred a day at Bagdad, and consequently you see the meanness of the price. A chicken, as soon as it comes out of the egg, seeks its food; but an infant hath not reason and discrimination. That which was something all at once never arrives at much perfection; and the other by degrees surpasses all things in power and excellence. Glass is everywhere, and therefore of no value; the ruby is obtained with difficulty, and on that account is precious. Affairs are accomplished through patience: the hasty man faileth in his undertakings.”
It was probably under the inspiration of these very words of Sâdi that Bagdad in the end vindicated itself. “The powerful Abbaside Caliphs of Bagdad,” says Major Murdoch Smith, “no doubt summoned to their court men of science and learning from all the countries under their sway—Persia furnishing them with architects and other artists. Skilled Persian workmen were no doubt employed in large numbers in decorating the mosques and palaces in the Arab capital, situated as it was on the very frontier of their own country. Thence, we believe, arose the so-called Arabian or arabesque style of ornament, afterward so widely spread, and now so well known. The peculiar pendent ornamentation of vaults and niches, of which the Alhambra is so typical an example, is identical in style with that used throughout Persia down to the present day.” If this theory be true—and really these works appear to sanction it—the Arabs derived their arts from Persia, as the Romans did from the Greeks, and consequently the Moors imported a Persian art into Spain. The Shah of Persia, in wishing to carry back with him Owen Jones’s reproductions of the Alhambra at the Crystal Palace, had good reason for his selection.
OLD PERSIAN EARTHENWARE (WATER-BOTTLE).
It is difficult to tell the age of most of this Persian work, and I think the enterprising collector of these specimens is not always happy in his estimates. Thus there is a beautiful vase (No. 1224) which Major Smith thinks over 500 years old, on the ground that it bears an inscription in Pehlevi; but that is no more evidence than would be a Latin epitaph in Westminster Abbey that the monument was erected during the Roman occupation of Britain. The collection shows that Persian art is by no means in such a state of decay as many have supposed. This is especially true of the exquisite damascene work still executed at Ispahan. “The true damascene,” says our collector, “is made of a particular kind of iron. After the object is forged it is placed for six or eight days in the furnace of a hot bath, where the greatest attention has to be paid to the even heating of the article. The bath is heated with the dried dung of cows and other animals, which gives a steady and not very intense heat, and is supposed to contain the salts necessary for the formation of true damascene. When the article is taken out of the furnace it is left at the temper it has therein acquired. It is then finished and polished. To bring out the grain a certain mineral (of which a specimen may be seen in the museum) is then applied in the following manner: about three parts of the mineral are dissolved in ten of water, over a slow fire, in an earthenware or leaden vessel. The object is then slightly heated, and a little of the liquid applied with a cotton wad, after which it is washed in cold water. If the damascene does not appear sufficiently the operation is repeated. The object must be thoroughly cleaned and polished before the mineral is applied.”
