The most remarkable collection of Chinese export porcelain is illustrated by Professor Sarre[174] from a photograph which he was able to make of the _Chini-hane_ or porcelain house attached to the mosque of Ardebil, in Persia. Ranged on the floor are some five hundred specimens--jars, vases, ewers, and stacks of plates, bowls and dishes, many of which had formerly occupied niches in the walls of the building erected by Shah Abbas the Great[175] (1587–1628). Unfortunately, the conditions were not favourable to photography, and the picture, valuable as it is, only permits a clear view of the nearer objects, the rest being out of focus and represented by mere shadows of themselves. They are, we are told, mainly blue and white, but with a sprinkling of coloured pieces, and it is clear from the picture that they belong to various periods of the Ming dynasty, mostly to the later part. They include, no doubt, presents from the Chinese Court,[176] besides the porcelains which came in the ordinary way of trade, and we recognise a large vase almost identical with the fine Chia Ching specimen on Plate 72: a small-mouthed, baluster-shaped vase, similar in form and decoration to a marked Wan Li specimen in the Pierpont Morgan Collection[177]; a bowl with lotus scrolls in blotchy blue, recalling the style of Plate 67, Fig. 4; a ewer with the curious fountain design described on p. 67; besides a number of the ordinary late Ming export types and some celadon jars and bulb bowls of a slightly earlier period. Some of the pots, we are told, are almost a metre in height. Among the tantalising forms in the indistinct background are some large covered jars with a series of loop-handles on the shoulders, such as are found in Borneo and the East Indies (see vol. i., p. 189). One of the most attractive types of late Ming export porcelain, and at the same time the most easily recognised, consists of ewers, bowls, and dishes of thin, crisp porcelain with characteristic designs in pale, pure blue of silvery tone; see Plate 77, Fig. 1. The ware is of fine, white, unctuous material with a tendency (not very marked) to turn brown at the foot rim and in parts where the glaze is wanting. The glaze partakes of the faintly greenish tinge common to Ming wares, but it is clear and of high lustre. Here, again, a little sand or grit occasionally adhering to the foot rim and radiating lines lightly scored in the base indicate a summary finish which detracts from the artistic effect no more than the obviously rapid though skilful brushwork of the decoration. Sharply moulded forms and crinkled borders, admirably suited to this thin crisp material, give additional play to the lustrous glaze, and the general feeling of the ware is well expressed by Mr. F. Perzynski[178] in his excellent study of the late Ming blue and white porcelains, in which he remarks that “the artists of this group have used thin, brittle material more like flexible metal than porcelain.”