Later Persian
- Key People:
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- We’wha
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- Dave the Potter
- Related Topics:
- whiteware
- Greek pottery
- kintsugi
- terra-cotta
- porcelain
Since the whole of Central Asia now lay under the Mongol domination, overland trade with China greatly increased. By the 15th century Chinese influence, particularly that of Ming blue-and-white, was predominant, and the older styles were tending to die out (see below China: Ming dynasty). A group of blue-and-white wares belonging to the 15th and early 16th century are known as Kubachi wares because large numbers of them survived above ground in this town in the Caucasus. They have a very soft body, a brilliant crackled glaze, and rhythmical and spontaneous designs. The later Kubachi blue-and-white is closer to the Chinese originals.
Polychrome appears about 1550, and the palette includes a red related to, though lighter than, the Armenian bole introduced about the same time in Turkey (see below Turkish). The best polychrome painting was done on tiles. Tabriz has been suggested as the real centre of manufacture, but although it seems likely that Tabriz was a manufacturing town in view of its tiled mosques and the fact that Tabriz potters were famous abroad (and indeed were either invited or carried off to Turkey on two occasions), no kiln sites have been found there.
One of the later kiln sites in Persia is Kerman, which was the leading pottery centre in the 17th century. Its wares are characterized by a very strong bright blue and a wavy, rather bubbly, glaze. Pseudo-Chinese marks were frequently added to the blue and white. The most usual colours on Kerman polychrome wares are blue, green, browns, and a bright red similar to Armenian bole. The quality of production declined considerably during the 18th century.
Lustre painting, which had almost ceased in the 13th century, was revived during the second half of the 17th century and perhaps lasted into the 18th century. Its place of manufacture is not known. Most of the objects decorated in this manner are small bottles or spittoons, and their cramped designs are timid and fussy. The lustre is warm brown, often with a strong red tinge, and was sometimes used in conjunction with blue glaze. Another early technique revived at the same time was piercing, formerly practiced in the Seljuq era. There are a number of delicate pierced white wares covered with a colourless glaze, which were imitated in China during the reign of Ch’ien-lung. Pierced pottery and porcelain of this kind was often known in Europe as Gombroon ware, the name of the port (now Bandar ‘Abbās) from whence it was shipped.
Chinese celadon was imitated, not very successfully, from the 14th century. In the 16th century other monochrome glazes were produced at Kerman and elsewhere. These and the celadon were frequently decorated with painted or incised ornament—the former a practice quite foreign to Chinese Sung dynasty wares.
During the 18th century most of the pottery produced in Persia was inferior blue-and-white. In the 19th century the standard declined still further with the adoption of the Chinese-inspired famille rose palette (see below China: Ch’ing dynasty), and only a group of wares made at Teheran between 1860 and 1890 can command any respect. Some excellent peasant pottery with a buff body and lead glaze was made in Turkistan, however.
Syrian
The potters from al-Fusṭāṭ and Raqqah may have migrated to Damascus after their potteries were destroyed by the Mongols, for lustre painting continued in Syria throughout the 13th and 14th centuries after it had ceased elsewhere in the Middle East. The lustre ranges in colour from silver to yellow and dull brown and is often used in conjunction with a blue glaze on big, heavy jars and albarellos (a jar with an incurving waist, used for dry drugs and ointments). Characteristic are gold designs arranged in panels with much use of inscriptions and heraldic devices. The body material is coarse and grayish, and the glaze sometimes has a wide crackle. Lustre painting fell into disuse in Syria about 1400 and might have died out altogether had not the secret meantime been carried from Egypt to Spain (see below European: to the end of the 18th century). The commonest type of Syrian pottery in the 14th century is a blue-and-black style similar in shape and design to the lustre ware. Rather uncertainly drawn animals appear on some of the vessels.
The earliest known Middle Eastern copies of Chinese blue-and-white were made in Syria at the end of the 14th century. Blue-and-white became commoner on both vessels and tiles in the first half of the next century. Later, the potteries seem to have fallen into disuse until the new mosque built in Damascus by the Turkish ruler Süleyman I (the Magnificent) in the mid-16th century provided a fresh impetus for the industry. The polychrome tiles of the 16th century at first have designs with a hard black outline; later, a more flowing foliate style was developed. A soft purple replaces the Armenian bole of Iznik (see below Turkish). Vessels and tiles, gradually declining in quality, continued to be made in Damascus until the end of the 18th century.
Turkish
A branch of the Seljuq Turks occupied Anatolia from 1078 to 1300 and was succeeded by the Ottoman Turks, who first extended their lands westward, conquering Byzantium in 1453 and in the 16th century becoming masters of much of southeastern Europe and the lands lying to the east and south of the Mediterranean. The first notable pottery wares from Turkish lands were the tiles and bricks covered with coloured glazes made in Anatolia for architectural purposes in the 13th century. Mosques in particular were decorated in this way. (Persian influence in decoration suggests the presence of potters from that region.) The art of tilework apparently died out after 1300 and was not reintroduced until about 1415, when Persian craftsmen were brought from Tabriz to decorate the mosques at Bursa and Edirne. Apart from tilework, pottery appears to have received little encouragement until the late 15th century, by which time the chief centre of production was firmly established at İznik (earlier called Nicaea).
The great era of Turkish pottery (c. 1500–c. 1580) coincides with the expansion of Ottoman power. Decoration was at first influenced by 15th-century Ming blue-and-white porcelain. The earlier designs were probably taken at second hand from Persian sources, since a distinctly Persian flavour is usually evident. This is indicated by the intricacy of the designs and their arrangement in bands, and by the shapes of some of the vessels, which suggest the influence of metalwork. At one time the wares in this style, which lasted until about 1525, were thought to come from Kütahya in central Anatolia and are still sometimes known by that name.
At this and later periods the body of Iznik pottery was soft and sandy. It was made from grayish-white clay covered with a thin slip that was usually white, although occasionally red or blue was used as a ground on later wares. Decoration was carried out in underglaze colours under a transparent siliceous glaze. The commonest shapes are flat dishes, but jugs, dishes with a high foot, and bowls are also found. Cylindrical vessels with small rectangular handles set halfway down are flower vases, not tankards, as one might think. A rare form is a pottery version of a mosque lamp.
During the next period (c. 1525–50), some wares of which have been erroneously attributed to Damascus, Iznik pottery was at its finest. Ming blue-and-white was now copied directly; for example, the central motif of grapes on a dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is an almost exact imitation of a well-known mid-15th century Chinese motif. On the same dish is a characteristic border pattern, which was called the Ammonite scroll border because it was thought to resemble the coiled shell of the fossil ammonite but which is certainly a debased version of the Ming Rock of Ages pattern. This scroll border appears often; a slightly later and even more debased version, which incorporates large S-shaped scrolls, is sometimes known as the dollar pattern.
The palette was gradually expanded to include turquoise, sage green, olive green, purple, and black. Most of the blue and turquoise specimens are painted with flowers. The Chinese flora motifs were almost entirely replaced by tulips, poppies, carnations, roses, and hyacinths in the form of fairly symmetrical sprays springing from a single point. The earliest flowers are often rather more stylized than the later, perhaps because the representation of living things was prohibited by Qur’ānic (Koranic) tradition. Even on comparatively late examples, floral designs are sometimes stylized to the point of abstraction, suggesting that decorators might have suited their patterns to the religious susceptibilities of their customers. An effective abstract pattern is formed from a series of overlapping scales that are usually carefully drawn. The same ground was later employed in Italy on maiolica and at the Berlin porcelain factory and may have indirectly inspired the series of wares with scale grounds made at Worcester, England.
After about 1550 Iznik pottery enters its third stage. The most notable technical innovation is the use of Armenian bole (sealing-wax red), a thick pigment that stands out in slight relief from the surface of the vessel.
The other great change is that tiles, which had previously been made in small numbers, became all important and remained so until the early 17th century. They were used to provide lavish decoration for the new mosques built at Constantinople by Süleyman I. Once again potters were brought from Tabriz to begin the work. Much use is made of copper green and the new red, the colours very brilliant on the glossy white ground. The tiles, usually square, make up flowing repeating patterns or long high pictures with elaborate borders.
On pottery, symmetrical sprays of flowers continued to be used as decoration until about 1600. Paintings of animals and birds are found occasionally, probably executed by Persian workmen since their resemblance to Persian wares is strong. The rare specimens with human figures were probably painted by Greeks or Armenians for export to the West. Turkish sailing vessels sometimes appear as a decorative motif.
In the 17th century the quality of Iznik wares declined, and by 1800 manufacture had ceased. At Kütahya, pottery making had begun by 1608 and continued into the middle of the 20th century. The wares, though inferior, have some resemblance to those of Iznik with the addition of a yellow pigment.
European: to the end of the 18th century
European wares made before the 19th century fall into six main categories: lead-glazed earthenware, tin-glazed earthenware, stoneware, soft porcelain, hard porcelain, and bone china.
Lead-glazed earthenware was made from medieval times onward and owes little to outside influences. The body is generally reddish buff in colour; the glazes are yellow, brown, purplish, or green. The wares are usually vigorous in form but often crudely finished. Lead-glazed wares fell out of favour when tin glaze became widely known toward the end of the 15th century, but they returned to popularity with the advent of Wedgwood’s creamware shortly after the middle of the 18th century. The body of this later lead-glazed earthenware is drab white or cream, the glaze clear and transparent like glass, and the forms precise.
The first important tin-glazed wares came from Italy during the Renaissance, and these colourful examples of the painter’s art exerted a profound influence on later work elsewhere. Manufacture spread rapidly, first to France, then to Germany, Holland, England, and Scandinavia. Under the name of majolica, faience, or delft, it enjoyed immense popularity until the advent of Wedgwood’s creamware, after which the fashion for tin-glazed ware declined rapidly.
Stoneware is first commonly seen in Germany during the 16th century; its manufacture was developed in England during the 18th century, culminating in the unglazed ornamental jaspers and basaltes of Wedgwood.
Two other types of ware, less common than those already discussed, are slipware and lustreware. Slip was applied both as a covering over an earthenware body and in the form of decoration, for example on the sgraffito wares of Italy (which owe a good deal to similar wares from Byzantium) and the dotted and trailed slips of 17th- and 18th-century England. Lustre pigments were used in Spain, where they are the principal decoration on the magnificent series of wares referred to as Hispano-Moresque; in Italy, where they supplement other modes of decoration; and much later, in England—although in the last case they are no longer artistically important.
The manufacture of soft porcelain was essayed in 16th-century Italy under the patronage of Francesco de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. Similar attempts were made elsewhere in Italy about the same time, and manufacture is supposed to have been continued at Pisa and at Candiana, near Padua (Padova). The first production of soft porcelain on a considerable scale did not take place, however, until toward the end of the 17th century in France.
In Saxony about 1675 Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus started experiments to make porcelain from clay mixed with fusible rock. Almost certainly he had made hard porcelain by the end of the century, but manufacture did not become a practical commercial proposition until the year of his death, in 1708. Experiments were continued by his assistant, an alchemist named Johann Friedrich Böttger, who is sometimes credited with von Tschirnhaus’ discovery. The factory was established at Meissen about 1710, and the first porcelain sales of any consequence took place at the Leipzig Fair in 1713.
Later, at the end of the 18th century, Josiah Spode the Second added bone ash to the hard porcelain formula to make bone china.
Byzantium
In 330 ce Byzantium became the imperial capital of the Roman Empire and was renamed Constantinople. The term Byzantine, however, is applied to the period that ended in 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks (and renamed Istanbul).
Since it was not a Christian custom to bury pottery with the dead, few wares survive, and chronology is difficult. Most of the surviving wares fall into two classes: one is a red-bodied type, sometimes with stamped relief decoration under a clear glaze; the other, a sgraffito type with human figures, animals, birds, monograms, foliate designs, the Greek cross, and the like, engraved through a white slip and covered with yellow and green glazes. The latter is the commonest type after the 12th century. Both styles were fairly widespread and have been recovered in fragmentary form from excavations at Istanbul, and in Greece, Cyprus, and on the Crimean Peninsula.
Spain
The earthenware of Spain falls into two classes: lustreware and painted tin glazed ware.
Lustreware
The lustre technique spread to Moorish Spain by way of Egypt, but it is impossible to say exactly when it arrived.
The body of Hispano-Moresque pottery is usually of fairly coarse clay, which has burned to a pinkish buff, covered with a tin glaze containing lead in varying proportions. The lustre, added overglaze, varies in colour from golden to a pale straw, and a coppery lustre almost invariably indicates at least a 17th century date. Many dishes were additionally painted in blue and, less often, with manganese.
Most surviving wares of the early period are dishes of various shapes. Less common are albarellos, waisted drug jars based on a Middle Eastern form. Vases based on the old Iberian Amphora but with two massive wing handles (the Alhambra type) are very rare. The decoration on wares of this early period is predominantly Moorish. Fine specimens of this kind are unlikely to be later than 1525. Subsequently, Spanish artists repeated the Moorish designs, but these often degenerate in their hands; and Arabic and the Kūfic script, frequently used by Moorish potters, becomes meaningless. The early designs are, for the most part, plant forms and arabesques, both the vine leaf and the bryony leaf being used. A little later there are magnificently drawn animals in heraldic form, principally lions and eagles. Still later there are deer and antelope, which may owe something to Persian sources. Dishes with coats of arms of noble families surrounded by vine- and bryony-leaf ornament are unusually fine. Many of them were made in Valencia and the neighbouring village of Manises for Italian families. A feature of many of the dishes is the lustre decoration on the reverse. Although often no more than a series of concentric circles, occasionally there are superb eagles and other animals found on dishes from Valencia that are even finer than the obverse designs.
In the 17th century much lustred pottery was made for the cheaper markets and for export to England. The painting is executed in a lustre pigment of deep coppery hue. While this ware is not important in comparison with the early wares, it is often decorative.
Other tin-glazed ware
Although the influence of Valencian lustre pottery on later Italian majolica is obvious, the wares of Paterna, near Valencia, were hardly less influential in the 14th century. They were decorated in green and manganese, often with motifs taken from Moorish sources; this combination of colours is to be seen in early Italian pottery from Orvieto and elsewhere.
Much tin-glazed pottery of excellent quality was made at Talavera de la Reina, in New Castile, during the 17th and 18th centuries. The palette is characteristic of much Spanish tin-glazed ware; green and manganese play a distinctive part, frequently combined with touches of orange-red and gray. The istoriato style of Urbino (see below Italy) was copied here, and the Italian painter and engraver Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) provided a source of inspiration for some of the painting. Alcora, in Valencia, made much faience of excellent quality during the 18th century.
Tilework was particularly common in Spain from the earliest period; according to one proverb, only a really poor man had “a house without tiles.” At first tilework was made with a typically Persian technique by which thin slabs of tin-glazed pottery were sawn into pieces and embedded in a kind of mortar (tile mosaic). The cuerda seca method of making tiles followed about 1500: outlines were drawn on the surface in manganese mixed with a greasy substance that prevented the coloured glazes used from mingling. Tiles made by the cuenca technique had deeply impressed patterns the compartments thus formed being filled with coloured glazes. Tiles were also decorated with lustre pigments.
Porcelain
The early porcelain made at Buen Retiro, near Madrid, in the 1760s, had been justly compared to that of Saint-Cloud. The quality of the ware was good, and some skillful figure modelling was done by Giuseppe Gricci, who had previously worked at Capodimonte.
Italy
The pottery of Italy is extremely important not only in itself but for its subsequent influence in other European countries. Indeed, its influence may have spread even farther afield: a few specimens of Ming porcelain have motifs that may have been inspired by it.
There are two well-defined classes of Italian earthenware: majolica, or tin-glazed ware, and pottery decorated in the sgraffito technique.
