356 EEPORT OJ' NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



but specimon.s iiro, it api^ears, common among them which bear no 

 resemblance to any ot" the celel)rated monochrome wares of the Sung 

 and Yuan dynasties, a fact Doctor Hirth would explain by supposing 

 that "they came from factories equally old, but less renowned, such 

 as the place where the Chicn-yno of the Sung dynasty was made, the 

 city of Chien-yangin the north of Fukien, which is all the more likely 

 since Chao Ju-kua, in his description of the trade with Borneo, spe- 

 ciall}" mention ' brocades of Chien-yang ' among the articles of import 

 there."' 



A controversy has, however, recently arisen as to whether the cela- 

 don vases found throughout the Mohanmiedan world are really of Chi- 

 nese origin at all. Professor Karabacek, an Arabic scholar of Vienna, 

 maintains that the " large, heavy, thick, green celadon dishes with the 

 well-known ferruginous ring on the bottom, which have been found 

 spread over all the countries of Arab civilization," are not of Chinese 

 origin, basing his theory mainly on the statement made by Hadschi 

 Chalfa, an encyclopedist who died in 1658, that "the precious mag- 

 nificent celadon dishes and other vessels seen in his time were manu- 

 factured and exported at Martaban, in Pegu." The Arab designation 

 Martabani is applied by Professor Karabacek to the thick, heavy cela- 

 dons. It would, however, appear to have been also applied to a variety 

 of entirely different character. 



Jacquemart, in his History of the Ceramic Art, quotes Chardin's 

 Voyages en Perse as follows: " Everything at the King's table is of 

 massive gold or porcelain. There is a kind of green porcelain so pre- 

 cious that one dish alone is worth -400 crowns. They say this porcelain 

 detects poison by changing color, but that is a fable; its price arises 

 from its beauty and the delicacy of the material, which renders it trans- 

 parent although above two crowns in thickness," and then adds: "This 

 last peculiarit}^ has a great importance. It is impossible to suppose 

 travelers would here allude to the sea-green celadon — this, laid upon a 

 brown, close paste approaching stoneware, is never translucent. In 

 the martahani^ on the contrary, a thin, bright, green glaze is applied 

 upon a very white biscuit, which allows the light to appear through. 

 * * * Its name leaves no doubt of its Persian nationality\ Marta- 

 ban {Mo-ta-ma) is one of the sixteen states which composed the ancient 

 Kingdom of Siam; it would not be impossible, then, that we must 

 restore to this kingdom the porcelain mentioned in the Arabian story." 



No porcelain, however, is known to have been made at Moulmien 

 (Martaban), Bangkok, or Burma, and the burden of evidence is 

 strongly against Professor Karabacek's contention of a non-Chinese 

 origin for the iiiartahani or celadon porcelain. Probably the designa- 

 tion wartahani was applied to this ware in much the same manner as 



^ F. Hirth, Ancient Chinese Porcelain, p. 50. 



