All Collections
Previous Next
Back to Collection

Jug with Lustre Decoration

POT 101 | Iraq | 9th century AD

Print Download

Artwork Details

Title: Jug with Lustre Decoration

Date: 9th century AD

Location: Iraq

Materials: buff-bodied earthenware, painted with polychrome lustre on an opacified white tin glaze

Dimensions: 29 x 16.4cm

Accession Number: POT 101

Other Notes:

An important development in Islamic pottery was the discovery that the technique of lustre painting, which by the 9th century had been used for glass, could be applied to pottery with even more spectacular results, and also could be combined with in-glaze staining. By applying a combination of metallic oxides, sulphur and other substances to the glazed surface and firing in an oxygen-poor muffle kiln, an infinitesimally thin metallic layer of gold, silver or copper was deposited on the surface. However, the process was difficult to control; the ultimate effect depended to a large extent on the firing conditions in the kiln. Over-firing tended to dull the colours but a few surviving vessels with brilliant metallic gold lustre on a ruby ground give a good idea of what the potters intended to produce. Initially they aimed for polychrome decoration but later monochrome yellowish lustre became more popular.

Although lustre-painted wares, both vessels and tiles, were indisputably a luxury, fragments are represented in excavations with later 9th-century levels all over the Middle East, and even northern India, at Brahminabad in Sind. Unfortunately, we do not know where these lustrewares were made or, indeed, whether the kilns enjoyed a local monopoly. Although the most important finds have come from Samarra, the Abbasid capital on the Tigris north of Baghdad founded in 836, scholars have suggested the port of Basra as the centre of production. On the other hand, such was the mobility of potters that lustre pottery could well have been produced at cities like Susa in western Iran and in Egypt at Fustat (Old Cairo) too.

With its angular shoulders, low feet and handle in the form of an animal jumping up to the rim, the shape of this vessel derives from early Islamic metalwork, which also influenced contemporary glass. The exterior is decorated with a honeycomb pattern filled with floral or foliate motifs, including almond-shaped forms recalling the wings of Sasanian royal crowns. 

Bibliography:

E.J. Grube et al, Cobalt and Lustre. The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, The Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, volume IX, London 1994, cat.20, pp.28–9.
J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.22, pp.46–7.

Related Artworks

Small Flask

JLY 1075
Jaipur, India

Youth in European Dress and Young Woman with Indian Headdress, from a Shahnamah

MSS 1000.1, MSS 1000.2
Isfahan, Iran

Dish

POT 684
Syria

Calligraphic Composition

CAL 154
Ottoman Turkey

Mail and Plate Shirt

MTW 1158
Northern Caucasus
for the Persian or Ottoman market

Two ‘Hands of Fatimah’

JLY 1923
India, possibly Hyderabad (Deccan)

Calligraphic Practice Sheet

CAL 266
Qazvin, Iran

Single Folio from a Four-part Qur’an

KFQ 90
Iran, Isfahan

Carpet with Star Medallions

TXT 213
Ushak, western Anatolia, Turkey

Mosque Lamp

GLS 572
Egypt

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 45
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 50
Middle East

Five Folios from a Qur’an

KFQ 52
Middle East or North Africa

Two Folios from the ‘Blue Qur’an’

KFQ 53
North Africa or Spain

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 60
probably the Hijaz

Two Bifolios from a Qur’an

KFQ 82
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 93
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Large Qur’an

KFQ 96
probably North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur'an

KFQ 34
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 84
Middle East or North Africa

Zoom

Close

Khalili Collections Logo

Share this page