Following the increase in marine trade in the eighth century, Chinese ceramics emerged as an important product in seafaring trade between East and West. The fragility, weight and volume of ceramics were such that the sea, which offered greater stability and allowed the carrying of heavier loads, provided a more suitable option for transport than land routes. This fact is confirmed by the huge quantities of ceramic shards, dating from the Tang to the Qing dynasties, which had been excavated at the major international marine trading outposts on the way to the West Asia, including the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Iraq and as well as Egypt. Chinese ceramics in the collections of Iran’s Ardebil Shrine and Turkey’s Topkapi Palace Museum, moreover, offer us some idea of the large quantity in which they reached Iran and neighboring countries. Chinese ceramics were unfailingly copied in every region that they reached, offering further proof of the high demand for them.
This study explores the influence, divided into four distinct periods, of Chinese export porcelains on blue-and-white wares of the Safavid Dynasty(1701~1722), the most powerful Persian political entity since the Sasanian Empire. This period saw the production of the finest and most advanced pieces in the history of Islamic ceramics; it is also the period that showed the greatest influence from Chinese export porcelains. The study begins by examining the various styles of Chinese export wares that reached Persia at the time, their forms and routes by which they reached West Asia, in order to explain their particular characteristics. Chinese export wares reached the Safavid Dynasty during the late-Ming and early-Qing dynasties by three routes: tributary trade; trade via European East India companies; and through trading by hawkers at major international trading ports in Southwest and Southeast Asia. Safavid blue-and-white wares imitating the Chinese export wares that reached Persia via these three routes can be divided into the following four periods, according to different characteristics. The first period, which spans the 16th century, is that during which blue-and-white wares inherited characteristics from those of the preceding Timurid Dynasty. The second period, in the first half of the 17th century, saw unprecedented support for the arts on the part of the Safavid Dynasty. The third, in the second half of the 17th century, saw a decline in royal authority but an emphasizing of tradition and independence in Persian culture, while the fourth period spans the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century and saw the collapse of the Safavid Dynastye amid economic difficulties, religious persecution, chaotic public sentiment and threats from neighbouring countries, accompanied by the influence of new porcelains from the Qing Dynasty. Finally, the study attempts to explain the circumstances that allowed the potters of the Safavid Dynasty to produce ceramics similar to those of China and which were of a higher quality than those in other West Asian countries at the time and of previous eras.