The qalam
The different sections and holes in the interior of the pen case are for holding the different tools of calligraphy: the reed pen, or qalam, in the larger section, the ink in the other, and sand used for blotting and string for cleaning the pens in the smaller holes.
Calligraphy was placed above all other arts in Persia due to its association with the writing of the Qur’an, and the qalam was similarly esteemed. In his ‘Treatise on Calligraphers and Painters’, Qazi Ahmad discusses how the qalam was the first thing created by God, and that inspiration for writing flowed through it.
How and why, then, was a case for holding the qalam used for writing Persian script produced in China? Metal pencases, and earlier ivory and wooden cases, had been produced in Iran for centuries. From the fifteenth century, such cases were imported into China and used as a model for ceramics. Studies have generally assumed that this was done solely to appeal to the Islamic export market. However, there is evidence that porcelain pen boxes were also produced for the use of officials in the Beijing language academy established in 1407.
A similar category of objects embedded in the transcultural nature of blue-and-white is that of porcelain brush rests with Persian or Arabic inscriptions that were produced for Chinese scholars. An early sixteenth-century example of this can be seen elsewhere on the Things That Talk website. The motifs and surface coverage are similar to those of the David Collection pen case, bringing into question previous suggestions that such dense designs were not to Chinese tastes.