Green with Envy: Celadons, Circulation, and Emulation in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean Worlds

Abstract

Much scholarship concerning the maritime ceramic-exchange networks between China and the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean worlds has concentrated on the importation of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains and local responses to these wares. Celadon ceramics, however, were among the earliest Chinese wares to be traded—and emulated—within these exchange systems. Foregrounding examples from the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, this article will consider textual evidence, manuscript paintings, archaeological finds, and extant objects, in order to explore the reception and emulation of Chinese celadon ceramics within these regions, with a focus on West Asia. Cutting across previously published, somewhat siloed studies, the discussion will place these celadon-exchange histories into a broader framework, tracing varying responses toward these materials in the context of transregional geographies.