THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 433 



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

 last peculiarity 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 

 martabani, 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. Martabau (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 martabani or celadon porcelain. Probably the designation marta- 

 bani was applied to this ware in much the same manner as " Combron- 

 ware" was applied in England after 1623 to porcelains brought from 

 China to that port on the Persian Gulf, and purchased there for ship- 

 ment home by the factory of the India Company before it extended its 

 operations to China (when these products came to be termed " China- 

 ware"), or in the same manner that "Indian China" is applied in 

 America to porcelain shipped from Canton, and with as much reason. 



Indeed, M. du Sartel, in accord with most other writers on the sub- 

 ject, maintains that no true porcelain was produced in Persia at all, 

 and that the designation of such ware Tehini not only means that the 

 earliest specimens and mode of manufacture were of Chinese origin, 

 but that they one and all actually came from China. The Persians, it 

 is true, manufactured a kind of ware which has been designated "Per- 

 sian porcelain," but it was of so soft a nature that it could be not only 

 scratched, but actually cut, with a knife, and was entirely distinct 

 from hard, kaolinic porcelain. The supplies of the latter were, M. du 

 Sartel maintains, derived entirely from China, to which country mod- 

 els, shapes, and special kinds of ornamentation were sent for repro- 

 duction, a custom which sufficiently explains the presence of a Persian 

 name, or the word /erwalc/te ("by order"), written in Arabic charac- 

 ters, upon porcelain of undoubtedly Chinese origin. 



This opinion requires, I apprehend, further investigation prior to its 

 acceptance as fact. It is, however, recorded that Shah Abbas I, a great 

 patron of all the arts, about the year 1600 invited a number of Chinese 

 potters to establish themselves at Ispahan for the sake of introducing 

 improvements in the manufacture of porcelain. Though several new 

 methods were adopted, and though a new style of decoration, half 

 Chinese, half Persian, was largely used for a long period after the arri- 

 val of these potters, it is generally admitted that no hard i^orcelain re- 

 sembling that of China was even then produced in Persia. And one 

 can not help being struck by the strong similarity, amounting practi- 

 H. Mis. 142, pt. 2 28 



