Chinese influences on Islamic pottery
An Eastern Zhou red earthenware bowl, decorated with slip and inlaid with glass paste, and now in the British Museum, is thought to have imitated metallic vessels, possibly of foreign origin.
[5][6] In that period, high quality high-fired earthenware starts to appear, called the "jeweled type", which incorporates lotuses from Buddhist art, as well as elements of Sasanian designs such as pearl roundels, lion masks or musicians and dancers.
[3] From the 9th century onwards, Islamic merchants started to import Chinese ceramics, which were at the core of the Indian Ocean luxury trade at that time.
[6][7] Chinese pottery was the object of gift-making in Islamic lands: the Islamic writer Muhammad Ibn-al-Husain-Bahaki wrote in 1059 that Ali Ibn Isa, the governor of Khurasan, presented Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph, twenty pieces of Chinese imperial porcelain, the like of which had never been at a caliph's court before, in addition to 2,000 other pieces of porcelain".
The cobalt blue that was used was itself imported from Persia, and the export trade in porcelain was handled by colonies of Muslim merchants in Quanzhou, convenient for the huge Jingdezhen potteries, and other ports to the south.
[10] The Persian origin of ceramic cobalt pigment is often overlooked in historical narratives due to the common misconception that blue and white ware was a purely domestic Chinese innovation.
[13] In turn, Chinese potters began in the early 16th century to produce some items in overtly Islamic styles, including jumbled inscriptions in Arabic.
These appear to have been made for the growing Chinese Muslim market, and probably those at court wishing to keep up with the Zhengde Emperor's (r. 1505–1521) flirtation with Islam.
[6][15] Yue ware was first manufactured from the 2nd century CE, when it consisted in some very precise imitations of bronze vessels, many of which were found in tombs of the Nanjing region.
[2] Shapes were also imitated, such as the lobed dishes found in Chinese Tang ceramics and silverware which were reproduced in Iraq during the 9–10th century.
This move saw the transfer of potters and ceramic manufacturing techniques from Egypt and Syria to Iraq and was also indicative of an emphasis on trade with eastern Asia, namely Tang dynasty China.
[23] Porcelain, invented in the 9th century and produced through kaolin clay and high-temperature firing, was introduced to the Islamic world through this trade.
They manufactured fine earthenware bowls with a gently flaring ridge and covered them with a white glaze rendered opaque by the addition of tin, an early example of tin-glazing.
Islamic potters in the Abbasid period seldom produced pure white ware and often decorated their work with cobalt blue geometric and floral motifs.
The style of Persian pottery known as Kubachi ware also absorbed influence from China, imitating both celadons and Ming blue and white porcelain.
Timurid blue and white ware of the late 14th and early 15th centuries display many more similarities between these Islamic ceramics and Chinese porcelain.
Maritime routes were the main mode of transportation for Chinese blue and white porcelain, traveling to the West through India across the Maldive Islands, to the Gulf ports, the Red Sea area, and even to East Africa.
The late 14th century Hama dish in Damascus National Museum is an example of Syrian potters' clear intent to replicate Chinese blue and white porcelain.
This water-based expansion of Chinese blue and white porcelain can be confirmed by finds in Japan, Korea, and South-East Asia.
Muslim merchants in the port town of Quanzhou in Fujian controlled the marketing of this porcelain, and there is little evidence of Mongol patronage in it as a fine art.
The Chinese blue and white porcelain being primarily produced were large-sized dishes used as export products for the Middle East.
