Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/645

RHODIAN.] POTTERY 621 of blue, the design being often regular and treated with some geometrical stiffness. Other sorts have in addition a soft olive green, and purple -brown made of manganese (see fig. 46). One of the finest specimens of the ware is FIG. 46. Plate of Damascus ware, painted in several tints of blue, a quiet green, and manganese purple. (British Museum.) a lamp taken from the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, and now in the possession of Mr Drury Fortnum, F.S.A. (see fig. 47). It is inscribed in large blue letters with pious sayings of Mohammed, and in small black charac ters round the lower rim, "In the year 956, in the month JumadA 1-iila. The painter is the poor, the humble Mus tafa." According to our reckoning this date is June 1549 A.D., the year when the Dome was re stored by Sultan Suleiman, who wa.s probably the donor of this beautiful lamp. One class of painted decoration used in Damascus ware has flowers treated in a simple way, yet with much natural beauty, such FlG - 47. Lamp from the Dome of the Rock, as the rose, hyacinth, tulip, carnation, and others, arranged on large plates and bowls with the most perfect skill and good taste. The plate shown above (fig. 46) is a good example of this sort of design. 6. Rhodian ivare, so called because it was largely manufactured by Oriental potters in the island of Rhodes, is made of rather coarse clay, covered with a fine white silicious slip, on which the decorations are painted, the whole being then covered with a thick glaze formed of silica, oxide of lead, and soda. Its chief characteristic is the use of a fine red pigment, which owes its colour to painted in the same colours as fig. 46. (Collection of Mr Drury Fortnum.) the red oxide of iron. This pigment was applied in very thick body, so that it stands out in actual relief like drops of sealing-wax. Plates, tall bottles, jars, mugs, and pitchers with handles are the usual forms. They are all decorated with patterns of great beauty and splendour of colour, brilliant blues, greens, and the peculiar red being the chief (see fig. 48). The designs are mostly flowers, exactly the same in drawing and ar rangement as those on the last -men tioned sort of Dam ascus ware. Other more geometrical patterns are also used, but mostly for wall-decoration. The finest specimens of Rhodian ware date from the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. Other pieces of this pot tery, which appear to have been made for European buyers, have coats of arms or human figures, the latter very coarsely executed, and prob ably later in date than the purely Ori- ental designs. The town of Lindus, where ruined kilns yet remain, was one of the chief places in Rhodes for the production of this kind of pottery. With other Oriental wares it was imported into western Europe during the 16th century. Some specimens exist with English silver mounts of the time of Elizabeth, very elaborately wrought. It was probably included under the title of " Damas ware," a name which often occurs in mediaeval inventories, and appears to include many varieties of Oriental pottery, all of which were very highly valued in France, Italy, and England during the long period when the native pottery in those countries was of a very rude description. The South Kensington Museum and the Hotel Cluny in Paris have the finest collections of this magnificent class of Oriental pottery ; some very choice specimens are in the British Museum and the Louvre. 7. Pottery made in Persia under Chinese Influence. This Perso- includes several varieties more or less strongly Chinese in Chinese method of execution or in design. It is recorded that Shah Abbas L, 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 improve ments in the manufacture of pottery. Though no hard porcelain like that of China appears to have been made in Persia, several new methods of work were introduced, and a new style of decoration, half-Chinese and half-Persian, was largely used for a long period after the arrival of the Chinese potters The main varieties of this Perso-Chinese ware are the following. (1) A sort of semi-porcelain, called by English dealers, quite with out reason, " Gombroon ware, " which is pure white and semi-trans parent, but, unlike Chinese porcelain, is soft and friable where not protected by the glaze. It is composed of silicate of alumina, with free silica, and an alkaline flux ; in the heat of an ordinary porcelain furnace it fuses into a transparent glass. It is very fragile, but is of an extremely pleasant texture and slightly creamy tint. It is frequently decorated with simple patterns pierced through the sides of the vessel ; the holes are filled up by the transparent glaze which covers the whole, thus forming, as it were, little windows

of clear glass. It is also often decorated with painted flowers or