(H. B. Wa.)
Persian, Syrian, Egyptian and Turkish Pottery[9]
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.
| Fig. 39.—Persian Plate painted in blues only. (Victoria and Albert Museum.) |
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.
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.