Lusterware, developed by Islamic potters, has captured viewers’ eyes for centuries with its shiny metallic wonder. Precursors of the lusterware technique were first produced in the eighth century in Egypt. However, this early iteration was abandoned as the artists had difficulty controlling the flow of pigments the surface during the firing process, and the technique only began to flourish in present-day Iraq in the ninth century. To create lusterware, a ceramic piece is first painted with an opaque tin oxide glaze and then fired. In a second stage of decoration, the artist applies gold and silver oxides mixed with clay to the surface, and the piece is then fired a second time at a lower temperature, between 500 and 700 degrees Celsius,and in a low oxygen environment. During this firing process, chemical changes occur leaving the silver and gold residue on the piece. Lusterware was designed for royal use in the Abbasid court, in present day Iraq, in the ninth and tenth centuries and eventually became popular with the well-to-do middle classes. The technique was a carefully guarded secret that traveled with artists themselves. From its origins in Iraq, the practice traveled to Egypt and then to Syria and Persia and finally to Europe. 

Historically, Islamic potters relied on four key elements of decoration. These components are abstract vegetal forms, figural iconography, calligraphy, and geometric patterns. Of these aspects calligraphy, or ornamental writing, was particularly significant. Since the birth of Islam in the seventh century, calligraphy had been a highly valued art, viewed as a way to spread and preserve God’s word, and its enduring importance can be seen in the decoration of pottery in later centuries. Another important stylistic aspect was the use of natural colors like blues, greens, and earth tones. Originally, artists created polychrome lusterware, works that incorporated multiple colors in their designs; however, techniques evolved to favor monochrome works because they were more economical and allowed greater detail in designs as only one color had to successfully go through the complicated firing process.

The Persian Lusterware Bowl at the BCMA exhibits many of the common characteristics of lusterware produced in Iran around 1200 AD. The rim of the bowl is adorned with ornamental script, and the vessel is decorated with geometric patterns on the exterior and plant-like forms on the interior. The form of the bowl itself with a high foot and flaring wall was a common shape made in the city of Kashan, a center of ceramic production in present-day Iran. The bowl is monochrome with all of the designs executed in a copper bronze color. The BCMA Persian Lusterware Bowl lacks any depictions of humans or other animals, but figural work was popular in Persian ceramics made at this time, as seen in the mid-13th-century Bowl with Musicians, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

2. Migration to Spain

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