Rare and Complex Wares: A Study of Vessels and Sherds Decorated with both Mina’i and Lustre Techniques

The two most prestigious, and technically challenging, ceramic decoration techniques used in the Islamic world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were mina’i and lustre. By far the rarest type of medieval Iranian fine glazed ceramic wares are the pieces that feature both of these types of overglaze decoration on the same vessel. The successful combination of the bright crisp colours and miniature detail possible with mina’i, and the flashing reflective metallic sheen of lustre, resulted in a dazzling tour de force of the potters’ art on a single vessel or tile. This paper discusses this rare and poorly studied corpus of twenty-two vessels and sherds that feature both methods. Two subgroups will be identified, and a re-evaluation of a well-known but poorly understood piece in the Louvre will be presented for the first time.