¹ The author has just completed the first full survey of the collection: Regina Krahl, in collaboration with Erbahar, Nurdan, ed. Ayers, John, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapĭ Saray Museum, Istanbul. A Complete Catalogue, 3 vols., Sotheby's Publications, London (spring, 1986).Google Scholar In this article “cat. no.” refers to entry numbers in this catalogue, “TKS” to inventory numbers of the Museum.

² The abundance of “official” wares in the Taipei collection is not matched by any other collection today, even if the holdings of the Palace Museum in Beijing are undoubtedly more comprehensive, containing wares of many different types, many of them recently excavated, others collected throughout the centuries.

³ The expression “purely ceramic” is here used for designs that result only from techniques immanent in the ceramic production, where the body is shaped by moulding, engraving, carving, combing, or where variations of the glaze colour and texture are decoratively exploited, in contradistinction to techniques alien to ceramics, such as painting, appliqué, inlay and similar work.

⁴ Among the finest objects of this type are the so-called guan (“official”) wares - exquisite small vessels with a smooth grey-green glaze and a deliberately produced crackle; see Gray, Basil, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, London 1984, pis. 103–14Google Scholar and colour plates L and M.

⁵ Note the similarity of Song fragments excavated at Fustat to vessels in Taipei, particularly of Yaozhou and Longquan celadon and Ding and Jingdezhen white wares, illustrated by Bo Gyllensvärd, “Recent Finds of Chinese Ceramics at Fostat”, parts I and II, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 45, 1973; pp. 91–119,Google Scholar and No. 47, 1975, pp. 93–117; and in Song ci tezhan mulu (Catalogue of the special exhibition of Song porcelain), National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1978. The fact that the Yaozhou and Ding kilns are situated much more closely to the Song capital Kaifeng while the Longquan and Jingdezhen kilns are close to the ports certainly is an important reason why the former are much less frequently found abroad than the latter.

⁶ The Mongols are known to have spared the lives of both true and self-styled artisans, but these were craftsmen of useful commodities rather than of art objects, such as blacksmiths for making weapons, wood workers, spinners, weavers and dyers of cloths, seal carvers, and so forth. “Everyone who can pull a saw is an artisan” is one reported Mongol definition; see Ch'ing-yüan, Chü, “Government Artisans of the Yüan Dynasty”, in Chinese Social History. Translations of Selected Studies, ed. Sun, E-tu Zen and de Francis, John, Washington, D. C. 1956, pp. 234–46.Google Scholar Only a few ceramic items have been found among the remains of the Yuan capital Dadu (Beijing).

⁷ The sea route is known to have been the most important connection between the Middle and Far East, but Yuan ceramics have also been found along the Silk Road, in one instance together with Arabic coins and an antique Middle Eastern bronze bowl (Wenwu 1979, no. 8, pp. 26–31)Google Scholar.

⁸ Sixty-four pieces of porcelain were recorded in 1514 as booty from Tabriz; more objects were probably taken from Cairo and from other conquered cities, but they are not recorded. A small number of porcelains came as gifts from Persia; and only two pieces are recorded as having been purchased. Documents concerning the Saray collection were studied by Dr. Ünsal Yücel and Dr. Julian Raby, and are analysed in the Catalogue of the Chinese ceramics (see note 1), vol. I, pp. 27–54.

⁹ See, for example, mounted and jewelled incense burners, cat. nos. 1742–4, 1904–5 of the Catalogue (note 1).

¹⁰ For qingbai and shufu-type wares see Medley, Margaret, Yüan Porcelain and Stoneware, London 1974, pp. 13–30.Google Scholar The term yingqing was coined more recently and is interchangeable with qingbai.

¹¹ For Kāshān wares see Lane, Arthur, Early Islamic Pottery, London 1947, particularly pls. 84–7, 89, 90A, 92B, and p. 45Google Scholar.

¹² See Medley, Margaret, The Chinese Potter, Oxford 1976, pp. 176 f.Google Scholar According to Rossabi, “Muslims occasionally supervised the government porcelain factories”; see Rossabi, Morris, “The Muslims in the Early Yüan Dynasty”, in China under Mongol Rule, ed. Langlois, John D., Princeton 1981, p. 285.Google Scholar

¹³ Native cobalt was probably experimented with during the late Song and Yuan in other kilns, but here neither porcelain nor painting is comparable in quality; see the examples of a bottle and some fragments of Yuan blue-and-white from kilns in Yuxi county, Yunnan province included in the exhibition catalogue Kiln Sites of Ancient China, by Hughes-Stanton, Penelope and Kerr, Rose, London, Oriental Ceramic Society, 1980, cat. nos. 316–20.Google Scholar Virtually no unsuccessful experiments with cobalt blue are known from Jingdezhen, but there are some such with copper-red decoration. The earliest datable blue-and-white object from the Jingdezhen area is a vase found in a tomb dated to 1319 (Wenwu 1981, no. 1, p. 83 and pl. 9)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Painting in dark brown on a cream-coloured slip was employed on Cizhou wares of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), but the sketchy painting, devoid of any shading or other refinements of brush handling, is the decoration of an earthy country ware, and never comes close to courtly brush-and-ink painting.

¹⁵ See Medley, Margaret, “Chinese Ceramics and Islamic Design”, in The Westward Influence of the Chinese Arts from the 14th to the 18th Century, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, No. 3, ed. Watson, William, London 1972, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bahrami, Mehdi, Gurgan Faiences, Cairo 1949;Google Scholar and “The Gurgān Finds”. A loan exhibition of Islamic pottery of the Seljūq period from the Raymond Ades Family Collection, London, Bluett & Sons, 1976.Google Scholar For a related Syrian metal plate see Margaret Medley, loc. cit. (note 15), pl. 2a. Which of these possible models in fact influenced the blue-and-white decoration of the Yuan is not known; no related Middle Eastern objects have yet been found (and published) in China.

¹⁷ The holdings formerly in the Ardabil Shrine were bestowed by Shāh ‘Abbās in 1611, see Pope, John Alexander, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Washington, D.C. 1956.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The finds from the Tughluq palace are published by Smart, Ellen, “Fourteenth Century Chinese Porcelain from a Tughluq Palace in Delhi”, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 41, 1975–1977, pp. 199–230.Google Scholar For Chinese blue-and-white ware discovered in Syria see Carswell, John, “China and the Near East; the recent discovery of Chinese porcelain in Syria”, in The Westward Influence of the Chinese Arts from the 14th to the 18th Century (loc. cit., note 15), pp. 20–25.Google Scholar Many more objects are known from private collections formed in the Middle East or India, such as, for example, the Cummings collection, discussed by Gray, Basil, “The Export of Chinese Porcelain to India”, Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 36, 1964–1966, pp. 21–37.Google Scholar The Yuan dynasty blue-and-white found in South-East Asia includes a number of very similar objects, but the majority are minor objects.

¹⁸ The Taipei collection includes some other wares from the Mongol Yuan dynasty; for example, an incense burner decorated in underglaze red, see Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Underglaze Red Ware of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Kong 1963, pp. 32 f., pl. 2.Google Scholar Feng Xianming stated in 1973 that twenty-nine complete pieces of Yuan blue-and-white had been found in China since 1949, most of them in hoards, some in tombs and only a few in the living quarters of the Yuan capital Dadu, see Xianming, Feng, “Woguo taoci fajue zhong de jige wenti”, Wenwu 1973, no. 7, pp. 20–29, 14;Google Scholar some additional ones have been discovered more recently.

¹⁹ See Dreyer, Edward L., Early Ming China. A Political History 1355–1435, Stanford, California 1982, pp. 114–22.Google Scholar On the restrictions of Chinese maritime trade see Wiethoff, Bodo, Die chinesisehe Seeverbotspolitik und derprivate Überseehandel von 1368 bis 1567, Hamburg 1963.Google Scholar

²⁰ David, Sir Percival, Chinese Connoisseurship. The Ko Ku Yao Lun. The Essential Criteria of Antiquities, London 1971, p. 305Google Scholar (folios 40a and b of the Chinese text).

²¹ For celadon wares see cat. nos. 222–39 of the Catalogue (note 1); for cloisonné enamel, SirGarner, Harry, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, London 1962, pls. 14–21A;Google Scholar for lacquer, SirGarner, Harry, Chinese Lacquer, London 1979, pls. 31, 36, 39;Google Scholar for textiles, Gugong Bowuyuan yuankan 1984, no. 2,Google Scholar inside of front cover; and for architectural reliefs, Jiro, Murata, Kyo-yō-kan, Kyoto 1957, vol. I, particularly p. 104 fig. 29 (2, 6), and pp. 108–9 figs. 30a and b.Google Scholar

²² Three bowls and two dishes of this type are in the Topkapi Saray (cat. nos. 589–93 of the Catalogue, see note 1); one bowl and one dish are in the Ardabil Shrine (personal communication by Margaret Medley). The National Palace Museum owns five blue-and-white objects of this type, see Porcelain of the National Palace Museum. Blue-and-white Ware of the Ming Dynasty. Book I. Hung-wu and Yung-lo, Hong Kong 1963, pls. 1–3;Google Scholar and Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum. Hung-wu, Yung-lo, Hsüan-te, Tokyo 1977, pls. 1–2.Google Scholar In addition, there are six related objects in underglaze red in Taipei, see Porcelain of the National Palace Museum (op. cit. note 18), pls. 1, 3–7.Google Scholar

²³ The painting shown here for comparison is in fact of a later date than the dish, but was chosen because it echoes the simple softly-painted pomegranate blossoms and leaves particularly closely. The time difference in this case is believed to detract nothing from the argument because such flower painting stands in a long tradition of very similar work. An earlier comparable flower painting similar in its overall approach but less close in detail is, for example, that of a gardenia by the Yuan dynasty painter Qian Xuan (c. 1235–after 1301), illustrated by Cahill, James, Hills Beyond a River. Chinese Painting of the Yüan Dynasty, 1279–1368, New York/Tokyo 1976, pl. 4.Google Scholar

²⁴ Compare the dishes cat. no. 596 in the Catalogue (note 1), which show in the centre a garden with various flowers grouped round a tall rock, and the painting “Autumn scene with quail and sparrows” by the Yuan dynasty painter Wang Yuan, dated 1347, where a similar rock and flowers are surrounded by birds; the painting is illustrated by James Cahill, op. cit. (note 23), pl. 73.

²⁵ This painting, again, is later in date than the decoration on the flask, but the title directly refers to it as a copy of an earlier painting style (see also note 23).

²⁶ The trade restrictions had lost some of their bite soon after Hongwu's death. Fifty-four pieces of this type are in Topkapĭ Saray, 183 were in the Ardabil Shrine. The overwhelming majority of early XVth-century blue-and-white in Taipei shows the more orderly regulated Xuande style, while examples of this painterly style are rare; see Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum (op. cit. note 22).

²⁷ There is no evidence that the use of reign-marked porcelain was officially restricted to the emperor or a selected court circle; but t he fact that the reign-marked objects of the early XVth century are always of top quality and were apparently not exported suggests a certain limitation of their availability. In the second half of the XVth century reign-marked porcelain is still of superior quality but is already found outside China, while from the XVIth century onwards reign marks appear indiscriminately on porcelains of all types and qualities.