Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/497

 Industrial Arts. 473 lines, now by sinuous forms, in imitation, perhaps, of waves. Such would be a kind of jar (Fig. 247) resembling a Greek pitlios. The shape in Fig. 248 indicates greater effort of invention. The ornament, however, is rude enough, and consists of perpen- dicular and horizontal bands. The shape, however, has a great defect in that one is puzzled as to which is the top and which the base. It requires a little consideration to distinguish the latter, so near is it to the upper part. Both form and ornament are better understood in the next two specimens. Thus, the out- line of Fig. 249 is in ex- cellent taste, and a pleasing effect is obtained by the double set of triangles around the base and the upper rim. But the master- piece of the potter is seen in Fig. 243 (to the left); its shape closely resembles the coffee-cups of Turkey and Persia in the present day. The decoration is composed of bands of a kind of trellis-work, where the lines cross each other obliquely and form diminu- tive lozenges, and between them a row of chevrons ; each band is separated, and the ornament well kept together by strips in relief. Though not destitute of elegance, the main characteristic of all these pieces is great sim- plicity. The best of them has nothing to foreshadow or remind us of the brilliant hues, the fanciful but charming forms, exhibited on glazed pottery (majolica). What these vases recall, with their dull tones and linear ornament, whether incised with the point or traced with the brush, are frag- ments collected in the ruins of Assyrian palaces, or the oldest tombs in Cyprus, or the lowest strata of the substructures of the Temple at Jerusalem, or those of Lydia and Caria.' Unglazed pottery ^ Hist, of Art, torn. ii. Figs. 373-379; toni- figs. 478, 479, pp. 485-488; torn. iv. Figs. 244-248. Fi«:. 246. — Buff earthen vase. Height, 125 c. Richard Collection.