THE CÉLADON
or fluted, others have ornaments in relief in good taste. Pétis de la Croix mentions another coloured porcelain in his translation of the "Thousand and One Nights,"—the Martabani. "Six old slaves," he writes, "less richly dressed than those who were seated, immediately appeared; they distributed mahramas [blue squares of stuff used to wipe the fingers], and served shortly afterwards, in a large basin of martabani [green porcelain], a salad composed of whey, lemon-juice, and slices of cucumber." Chardin cites a green porcelain, which seems to be the same. He writes: "Everything at the king's is of massive gold or porcelain. There is a kind of green porcelain so precious that one dish alone is worth four hundred crowns. They say this porcelain detects poison by changing colour, but that is a fable: its price arises from its beauty and the delicacy of the material, which renders it transparent, although above two crowns in thickness." This last peculiarity has a great importance. It is impossible to suppose travellers would here allude to the sea-green céladon of which we have spoken above; this, laid upon a brown, close paste, approaching stone-ware, 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. It is most wonderful that a material so esteemed, and of so high a price, is not more common in our collections. Its name, on the other hand, leaves no doubt of its Persian nationality. Martaban (Mo-tama) is one of the sixteen states which composed the ancient kingdom of Siam; it may not be impossible, then, that we must restore to this kingdom the porcelain mentioned in the Arabian story. (Dr. Hirth's translation.)
M. Jacquemart's description of the martabani is imaginative. His difficulty in attributing transparency to any specimen of Chinese céladon would have disappeared had he remembered that among céladons (to be presently spoken of) manufactured at Ching-tê-chên during the Ming period, many had a genuine porcelain pâte and were translucid. As for the the-
63
