Small fritware jug painted in luster over a
transparent glaze, the globular body decorated
with large horizontal bands filled with foliage
motifs above a calligraphic band. The upright
neck featuring a band of ve. The whole resting
on a small vertical compartments filled with
swirls and foliage below a calligraphic register
and above a plain white band. The glaze
terminating just short of the foot ring whihc was
left bare.
Lustreware was possibly imported from Egypt at
the end of the Fatimid period and then fully
mastered by the Persian potters by the mid 12th
century CE. During this period, Muslim potters
developed a new and finer material than clay,
"frit" consisting of about ten parts crushed
quartz, one part white clay and one part glass frit
made by melting crushed quarts and potash and
crushing the substance again.
Preoccupation with surface decoration reached
new levels of technical sophistication with the
use of metal-based "luster" pigments—a
combination of copper and silver—in twelfth-
century Iran. The pigment was applied to the
cold body of an already glazed tile or vessel,
which was refired in a specially constructed kiln
that allowed the metallic oxides to adhere to the
vessel. The result was a shimmering lustrous
surface rivaling those of gold and silver metal
objects.
