| The Persians were good potters and well | | | | made. |
| advanced before the European even knew about | | | | Excavations carried out at the end of the |
| pottery. Chinese wares were exported to these | | | | nineteenth century first revealed the beauty of |
| Persia and Near East countries. Discoveries | | | | these Islamic wares, which had then been long |
| through many excavations have revealed the | | | | forgotten. Ironically, beautiful as so many of them |
| beautiful Islamic wares, which were forgotten. | | | | are, most have been restored from fragments |
| IN Persia and other Near East countries pottery | | | | found discarded in rubbish-pits in Persia and Egypt. |
| had been made for many centuries, and while the | | | | Good examples are, understandably, rare, and |
| majority of Europe was in a state of barbarism, | | | | poor ones skillfully made up from two or more |
| attractive wares were being made with brilliantly | | | | articles with a generous helping of plaster and |
| colored glazes and with designs incised or painted. | | | | paint are to be guarded against. |
| The Persians rediscovered the art of tin glazing; a | | | | Most of the wares made in Persian and nearby |
| technique used by the Assyrians, and was | | | | pottery centers from the fourteenth century |
| masters in the use of colored lusters by the end | | | | onwards are versions of earlier types and show |
| of the twelfth century. Both of these processes | | | | less originality. Imitations of Ming blue-and-white, |
| reached Europe later by way of the Moors in | | | | with thick glaze and a very runny blue, are |
| Spain. | | | | sometimes mistaken for Chinese. |
| Many types of Chinese wares were exported to | | | | To the northwest of Persia, in Turkey, a |
| the Near East countries, and there was a | | | | distinctive pottery was made. It has a sandy |
| constant interchange of ideas; the Chinese learned | | | | body coated with white slip, decorated with |
| of painting in under glaze blue from the Persian | | | | painting of formal floral or leaf patterns outlined in |
| potters at Kashan, and the Persians made | | | | black and colored in a distinctive thick red, bright |
| imitations of their favorite Chinese celadon glazes. | | | | green and blue. It dates from about the sixteenth |
| Following the important Persian Exhibition held in | | | | century. This ware was once thought to be of |
| London in 1931, scholars have turned their | | | | Persian origin, later said to have come from the |
| attention to the earlier wares, and attempts are | | | | Island of Rhodes and known as 'Rhodian' ware, |
| being made to trace a sequence of styles and to | | | | but is now accepted as having been made |
| discover exactly where the various types were | | | | principally at Isnik, a town to the south of Istanbul. |