Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎513v] (151/238)

364
Siam s Intercourse with China.
cent celadon dishes and other vessels seen in his time were manufactured
and exported at Martaban in Pegu,” seems to me most decisive, although
I believe that a mistake was made by its author in confounding Martaban,
the port of shipment, with their place of origin. The latter, I am fain to
think, was almost undoubtedly Swankhalok, the only place I know of in
Indo-China where glazed pottery closely approaching Chinese porcelain
of the most classical pattern was ever manufactured. Truly, there appear
to be two widely different kinds of wares to which the term Martabani
was applied :* one, according to Jacquemart, presenting a thin, bright
green glaze, overlaying a very white biscuit, which allows the light to
appear through, and constituting, in the opinion of Professor Karabacek,
the finest celadon porcelain to be met with throughout the Muslimic
Orient; the other typified especially, in the words of the same authority,
by the “ large, heavy, thick, green celadon dishes with the well-known
ferruginous ring on the bottom, which have been found spread over all the
countries of Arab civilization.” Now, it is this latter kind which seems
to possess the chief characteristics common to the Swankhalok wares,
and which very probably will some day, when an exhaustive examina
tion and comparison has been instituted by experts, be identified with
them. As to the superior class of the Martabatii first described, they
* Even three kinds, if we include under this denomination the large-sized glazed jars,
also called Martabani, but better known as “ Pegu jars,” which were famous all over
the East for many centuries (see Yule-Burnell Glossary, p. 428). These were and
are still chiefly made at Twante and neighbouring places of the coast of Pegu, and
although glazed they have nothing to do with Swankhalok wares and the class of pottery
(celadon dishes, etc.) forming the object of the present discussion ; hence I have re
frained from dealing with them in the following pages. I cannot help, at the same
time, calling attention here to the fact that this vague term Martabani has been made to
cover, or designated at different periods, several quite distinct kinds of pottery, ranging
from common glazed earthenware to the very finest porcelain ; thence, I think, a good
deal of confusion has arisen as to the class of vessels that are more properly implied.
On this subject authorities vary very considerably. Dulaurier, for instance, quotes from
Father Azar, a Maronite, that Martaban means a casket or vase for keeping medicines
and comfits, etc. But Colonel Yule observes (“ Cathay,” vol. ii., p. 476) the word is
used for the great vessels of glazed pottery called Pegu or Martaban jars from the places
where they were purchased, and which retained a wide renown up to the present
[nineteenth] century. These are likewise the “great pottes of Martavan ” mentioned by
Linschoten (see Anderson’s “ English Intercourse with Siam,” p. 33), in which palm-wine
from the Nipa, or a//a^-palm, “ was carried from Tenasserim to all places in India” ;
and also the large black-glazed jars to which Barbosa devotes the passage rendered by.
Ramusio Navigation!, etc., vol. i., p. 317 a, of the 1563 edition), as follow-s: “Si
lavorano in questo luogo di Martabane grandissimi vasi di porcellana bellissimi e
in,vetriati di color negro, havuti i sommo pregio appresso li Mori: li quali gli levano di
qui, come la maggior mercantia che possino havere. ” Now, these products of an un
doubtedly local industry have nothing to do, it seems to me, with the “ caskets or vases
for keeping medicines,’ described by Father Azar, and less still with the celadon
porcelain vessels known to the Muslimic Orient under the name of Martabani, which
were certainly not manufactured at the same places where Pegu jars were turned out,
and cannot in any way be classed with them. It is with this class of the superior—
and perhaps older in date or style— Martabani that we propose to concern ourselves
in the present discussion, and it will be now seen how necessary it was to draw a line of
distinction between the so varied kinds of the wares so named, in order to avoid the
confusion that has been made by many of the authorities who treated the subject.