Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/500

 476 History of Art in Antiquity, climate and the surroundings ; the requisite materials were within reach of their hand ; they were trained to use warm and trans- lucent colours which could be applied indifferently to small articles of luxury and personal ornaments of gold and silver, artistic furniture, pottery, and the walls and roof coverings of enormous edifices. The art spread from Persia beyond the Oxus to the frontiers of China, as well as India and Afghanistan. Among the choicest products of this industry are the ornamental tiles with which the mosques were decorated, along with Aagons, plates, and dishes. Persian earthenware, so much admired nowadays, differs in some respects — style and ornamental designs— from that which has come from Susa. Though somewhat changed, it is none the less the daughter and continuator of that very old art industry, the remains of which, snatched from the ruins of Assyria, Chaldaea, and Elam, enrich now the British Museum, and above all the Persian Room at the Louvre.* It is beyond our province to institute a com- parison between the two schools ; but it was necessary to point out to future students of ceramic art how far back they should carr>' their investigations and researches. The body of the enamelled liles at Susa is not common potter's clay, but a kind of sandy, silicious frit. If enamels seldom occur on bricks, it was doubtless because they found out tha^ in order to effect the fusion and lasting adhesion of the colours, the composi- tion of the paste must be somewhat different from that of building materials. Squares intended for the lining of walls were not made with the frit in question. Squares have a great drawback; no matter how carefully they may be fixed, they are sure to get loose through Plutonic agency or the mere action of tim^ when the least shaking of the soil will detach them and cause them to fall. This I learnt at Broussa, where, in consequence of an earthquake, varnished plaques, the glory of the Green Mosque, fell off by hundreds, and imaums made a good penny out of those that had not been damaged by the fall in selling them to travellers. Susa, which he deposited in the British Museum. It is somewhat strange that they should not have excited more attention. He mentions a winged disc as among the devices'exhibited on the glazed earthenware in question, a form which does not appear on the slabs belonging to the Louvre {Traoeis and Heuarckts, ppi 39^398). Digitized by Google
 * Loftiis brought home fragments of the enamelled decoration of the palace at