ware is a type of Persian pottery, or

Islamic pottery Islamic pottery occupied a geographical position between Chinese ceramics, and the pottery of the Byzantine Empire and Europe. For most of the period, it made great aesthetic achievements and influence as well, influencing Byzantium and Europe ...

, developed in

Kashan Kashan (; ) is a city in the Central District (Kashan County), Central District of Kashan County, in the northern part of Isfahan province, Isfahan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. History Earlies ...

in the decades leading up to the

Mongol invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia The Mongol conquest of Persia and Mesopotamia comprised three Mongol campaigns against Islamic states in the Middle East and Central Asia between 1219 and 1258. These campaigns led to the termination of the Khwarazmian Empire, the Nizari Ismaili ...

in 1219, after which production ceased. It has been described as "probably the most luxurious of all types of ceramic ware produced in the eastern Islamic lands during the medieval period". The ceramic body of white-ish

fritware Fritware, also known as stone-paste, is a type of pottery in which ground glass (frit) is added to clay to reduce its fusion temperature. The mixture may include quartz or other siliceous material. An organic compound such as gum or glue may b ...

or stonepaste is fully decorated with detailed paintings using several colours, usually including figures. It is significant as the first pottery to use overglaze enamels, painted over the

ceramic glaze Ceramic glaze, or simply glaze, is a glassy coating on ceramics. It is used for decoration, to ensure the item is impermeable to liquids and to minimize the adherence of pollutants. Glazing renders earthenware impermeable to water, sealing th ...

fixed by a main

glost firing Ceramic glaze, or simply glaze, is a glassy coating on ceramics. It is used for decoration, to ensure the item is impermeable to liquids and to minimize the adherence of pollutants. Glazing renders earthenware impermeable to water, sealing th ...

; after painting the wares were given a second firing at a lower temperature. "" (), a term only used for these wares much later, means "enamelled" in the

Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...

. The technique is also known as '' haft-rang'', "seven colours" in Persian. This term was used by the near-contemporary writer Abu al-Qasim Kasani, who had a pottery background. This technique much later became the standard method of decorating the best European and

Chinese porcelain Chinese ceramics are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. They range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese ...

, though it is not clear that there was a connection between this and the earlier Persian use of the technique. As in other periods and regions when overglaze enamels were used, the purpose of the technique was to expand the range of colours available to painters beyond the very limited group that could withstand the temperature required for the main firing of the body and glaze, which in the case of these wares was about 950 °C. The period also introduced

underglaze Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...

decoration to Persian pottery, around 1200, and later mina'i pieces often combine both underglaze and overglaze decoration; the former may also be described as inglaze. Most pieces are dated imprecisely as, for example, "late 12th or early 13th century", but the few inscribed dates begin in the 1170s and end in 1219.

Gilded Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...

pieces are often dated to around or after 1200. It is assumed that the style and subjects in the painting of mina'i ware were drawn from contemporary Persian manuscript paintings and wall paintings. It is known these existed, but no illustrated manuscripts or murals from the period before the Mongol conquest have survived, leaving the painting on the pottery as the best evidence of that style. Most pieces are bowls, cups, and a range of pouring vessels: ewers, jars, and jugs, but only a handful are huge. Some pieces are considered begging bowls, or using the shape associated with that function. Tiles are rare, perhaps designed as centrepieces surrounded by other materials, rather than placed in groups. tiles found ''in situ'' by archaeologists at

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

, Turkey were probably made there by itinerant Persian artists. Sherds of mina'i ware have been excavated from "most urban sites in Iran and Central Asia" occupied during the period, although most writers believe that nearly all production was in Kashan.

Wares and dates

Black and

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighte ...

may be in underglaze, with a wider range of colours in overglaze. As well as the usual white glaze, a coloured turquoise glaze is used in some pieces, giving a background to the overglaze painting. The designs' outlines were black, with thin brushed lines. Some mina'i pieces, usually thought to be from the later part of the period, use

gilding Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...

, sometimes on patterns on the body that are raised up (probably using

slip Slip or The Slip may refer to: * Slip (clothing), an underdress or underskirt Music * The Slip (band), a rock band * ''Slip'' (album), a 1993 album by the band Quicksand * ''The Slip'' (album) (2008), a.k.a. Halo 27, the seventh studio al ...

). A few pieces combine lustre and mina'i painting in different zones. A small proportion (smaller than for lustreware) of pieces are signed and dated. Watson records ten such pieces, signed by three potters, with dates from 1178 to 1219. For Kashan lustreware the equivalent numbers are "over ninety" pieces, "perhaps six" potters, and dates from 1178 and 1226; there are then no dated pieces until 1261, suggesting the long-lasting disruption of the Mongol invasion. Abū Zayd ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Zayd, a Kashani potter in this period, demonstrated that the same workshop might produce the two techniques with the most signed pieces, with fifteen pieces. The earliest date on these is 1187, on a mina'i bowl, but most pieces are

lustreware Lustreware or lusterware (the respective spellings for British English and American English) is a type of pottery or porcelain with a metallic glaze that gives the effect of iridescence. It is produced by metallic oxides in an Ceramic glaze, over ...

, where dates extend to 1219. In the

Ilkhanate The Ilkhanate or Il-khanate was a Mongol khanate founded in the southwestern territories of the Mongol Empire. It was ruled by the Il-Khans or Ilkhanids (), and known to the Mongols as ''Hülegü Ulus'' (). The Ilkhanid realm was officially known ...

, overglaze painting continued in a rare new style called ''lajvardina'' wares, but these featured patterns rather than figures, with deep underglaze blue and

gold leaf upA gold nugget of 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter (bottom) can be expanded through hammering into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 (5.4 sq ft). The Japan.html" ;"title="Toi gold mine museum, Japan">Toi gold mine museum, Japan. Gold leaf is gold that has ...

fixed in a second firing. The Persian name refers to

lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. Originating from the Persian word for the gem, ''lāžward'', lapis lazuli is ...

, though the usual

was used., The study of mina'i ware is complicated by a lot of excessive restoration and embellishment by dealers after the pieces attracted the attention of collectors, mostly in the West, from the late 19th century onwards. For example, the catalogue entry for a bowl in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, from the

Robert Lehman Robert Owen Lehman Sr. (September 29, 1891 – August 9, 1969) was an American banker, longtime head of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, and a racehorse owner, art collector, and philanthropist. Life and career Lehman was born to a Jewish ...

collection, records that "Extensive restoration has interfered with the inscription in certain areas, and nearly every part of the interior decoration has been subjected to heavy overpainting".

Iconography

A few pieces have entirely abstract or geometric patterns or designs, but in most pieces, there are figures, usually several small ones. Images of enthroned rulers flanked by attendants are standard, as are figures of riders, who are often engaged in princely pursuits such as hunting and

falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

. The "inscrutable rulers were probably never meant to represent particular rulers or their consorts", any more than the loving couples. Similar motifs abound in other media; it is not clear to what extent they reflected the actual lifestyle of the owners or users of pieces; probably, these "may indicate a general middle-class aspiration or identification" with the princely lifestyle.

Peacock Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...

s may accompany princes, and there are often numbers of the Islamic version of the

sphinx A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...

, especially around the outer border of flat open shapes. Scenes and figures from the Persian literary classics can be seen. The outside of raised bowls is usually not painted with images, although some have relatively simple floral or abstract decoration, but inscriptions of text running around the piece are common. Many of these are from standard works of

Persian poetry Persian literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources have been within Greater Iran including present-day ...

, possibly taken from anthologies that would have been available to the potters. A well-known low bowl in the

Freer Gallery of Art The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and ...

(reconstructed from fragments) is exceptional, both in its size of 47.8 cm across and in its design; it is the largest known plate in the mina'i technique. There are a vast number of figures, all at the small size typical of other, smaller, pieces. They are engaged in a battle, probably a specific event of the period when "an Assassin stronghold was attacked by a petty Iranian prince and his troops". The eight principal figures on the victorious side are named in inscriptions next to them, with Turkish names, and a

siege engine A siege engine is a device that is designed to break or circumvent heavy castle doors, thick city walls and other fortifications in siege warfare. Some are immobile, constructed in place to attack enemy fortifications from a distance, while othe ...

and an elephant appear in the scene. This bowl is dated to the early 13th century. This piece may well follow a depiction in a wall painting or other medium, as may a "celebrated" beaker, now also in the Freer, which is the fullest example of an iconographic scheme taken from the Persian literary classics, in this case, the ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

''. Here, a whole story is told in several scenes in three registers running around the cup.

Context

ware began to be made when Persia was, in theory, part of the

Seljuk Empire The Seljuk Empire, or the Great Seljuk Empire, was a High Middle Ages, high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turco-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, established and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. ...

, whose ruling dynasty and top elite were ethnically Turkish. But Persia was ruled by the

Khwarazmian dynasty The Anushtegin dynasty or Anushteginids (English: , ), also known as the Khwarazmian dynasty () was a Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic peoples, Turkic ''mamluk'' origin from the Begdili, Bekdili clan of the Oghuz Turks. The Anushteg ...

, also of Turkic origin, initially as vassals of the Seljuk, until in 1190, they severed these ties and ruled independently until the devastating Mongol conquest beginning in 1219. Although generally described as belonging to the "Seljuk period", some of the "most iconic" productions of stonepaste vessels can be attributed to the Khwarazmian rulers after the end of Seljuk domination. The fifty years from 1150 saw great developments in Iranian ceramics. Firstly, the fritware body and the glazes used on it were greatly improved, allowing thinner walls and some translucency of

, which was already imported into Persia and represented the main competition for local fine wares. This "white ware" body was used for various styles of decoration, all showing great advances in sophistication. Apart from ware, the most luxurious was

, which also required a light second firing; the earliest dated Persian piece is from 1179. The main colour of lustre paint used was gold; this needs to be distinguished from the overglaze application of

found in many later mina'i pieces. The "white ware" body was, however, not able to match Chinese porcelain in strength, and though historians praise the delicacy and lightness of and lustred pieces, they are dubious about the practicality of these expensive wares, because of their fragility. Ceramics were not

grave good Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a corpse, body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into an afterlife, or offerings to gods. Grave goods may be classed by re ...

s in Islamic societies, and almost all the survivals that have come down to us were broken, and probably mostly discarded after breakage. Most find sites are unrecorded; some pieces were buried unbroken, perhaps to hide them from looters. However, there are also modern forgeries and Michelsen and Olafsdotter note that "one must now be rather suspicious of any piece of ''mina'i'', especially those that appear to be whole and unscathed". Their extended technical analysis of a large and well-known dish now in the

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA; ) is a museum on one end of the Corniche in Doha, Qatar. As per the architect I. M. Pei's specifications, the museum is built on an island off an artificial projecting peninsula near the traditional '' dhow'' ha ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

, finds that much of the dish is made up of fragments originally from elsewhere (quite possibly also medieval) that have been reshaped to fit the dish, and then painted to match the decorative scheme. Though luxurious and considered pottery, the new Persian lustre and mina'i wares may have represented a cost-saving alternative for vessels using precious metals, either in solid form or as inlays on

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

. As early as 1100, the economy of the Seljuk Empire was weakening, and silver was in short supply. Lustreware was not a new technique; it had been used in the Arabic-speaking world for centuries, but was new to Persia. Its spread there has been connected to a flight of potters from

Fustat Fustat (), also Fostat, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, though it has been integrated into Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Muslim general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Mus ...

(Cairo) during the turbulent collapse of

Fatimid Egypt The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, it ...

around 1160. Since the shapes in Persian lustreware are traditionally local, the refugee artisans likely were mostly pottery painters rather than potters. Lustreware painting styles can be connected to earlier ones in Arabic-speaking lands in a way that is not possible for mina'i ware, whose style, and possibly artists, are normally taken to be drawn from manuscript painting. It is even clearer to scholars that lustreware production was concentrated in Kashan than for mina'i ware. The mina'i style was soon copied in other parts of the Seljuk empire, especially Syria. However, the makers did not know the secrets of the overglaze technique and used underglaze painting instead. The secrets of lustreware at least may have been held by a small number of families in Kashan. The later Persian mīnākārī style was and is enamel on a metal base, practiced from the 18th century to the present. File:The Gulbenkian Museum (28595000138) (cropped).jpg, Bowl with ruler and sphinxes File:Bowl w. enthroned figure & attendants, Mina'i ware, Central Iran, Seljuk period, late 12th or early 13th century, earthenware with polychrome enamels and gold over white glaze - Cincinnati Art Museum - DSC04021.JPG, Enthroned figure flanked by attendants. File:Bowl MET 57.36.14front.jpeg,

Bahram Gur Bahram V (also spelled Wahram V or Warahran V; ), also known as Bahram Gur (New Persian: , "Bahram the onager unter), was the Sasanian King of Kings (''shahanshah'') from 420 to 438. The son of the incumbent Sasanian shah Yazdegerd I (), Bahram ...

hunting with Azadeh; 3 5/8 x 8 3/8in. (9.2 x 21.3 cm) File:Bowl with design of equestrian figure, Iran, Minai type, 13th century AD, enamelled ware pottery - Matsuoka Museum of Art - Tokyo, Japan - DSC07251.JPG, Rider in centre, with

es in a band File:Iranian - Flower Vase with Horsemen - Walters 481278 - Profile (cropped).jpg, Jug with figures, combining lustre painting (top) and mina'i; 22.5 × 12.8 cm (8.8 × 5 in) File:Beggar's bowl w. sphinxes & seated figures, Mina'i ware, Central Iran, Seljuk period, late 12th or early 13th century, earthenware with polychrome enamels and gold over white glaze - Cincinnati Art Museum - DSC04018.JPG, Beggar's bowl with sphinxes & seated figures; colours include

File:Iran, Kashan, Seljuk Period - Minai Beaker with Seated Princes - 1917.977 - Cleveland Museum of Art (cropped).tif, Beaker with seated figures File:Bowl, Iran, early 13th century, stonepaste body painted over glaze with enamel - Freer Gallery of Art - DSC04629.jpg, Couple File:Minai-ware jug - Kashan - 12th-13th century - IMJ B59-06-0542 - from side.jpeg, Jug with mounted falconer File:Mina'i Bowl with Abstract Pattern MET wb-12.49.1.jpeg, Bowl with abstract pattern, 6 1/4 in. (15.9 cm) across File:Rustam and dragon on twelve-pointed tile, Iran, late 12th century, stonepaste painted over glaze with enamel and gold - Freer Gallery of Art - DSC04681.jpg, Star tile with

Rustam use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Kabulistan , death_cause = With the conspiracy of his half-brother Shaghad, he fell into a we ...

and dragon File:Faceted Basin, Mina'i ("enameled") ware MET SLP1644-1 (cropped).jpg, "Faceted Basin", with gilding over the pattern raised in slip. After 1200. File:Covered Jar (Albarello) MET DT11998 (cropped).jpg, Albarello jar in the succeeding "lajvardina" style; after 1250 File:Iran, versatoio, 1190-1210 ca..JPG, Ewer with gold lustre, 1190-1210 File:Bowl with Seated Figures by a Pond, Iran 1211-12, Ashmolean Museum.jpg, Bowl with Seated Figures by a Pond, Iran 1211-12, Ashmolean Museum

Notes

References

* Caiger-Smith, Alan, ''Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World'' (Faber and Faber, 1985) *Canby, Sheila R., and others ( Deniz Beyazit, Martina Rugiadi, A. C. S. Peacock), ''Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs'', 2016, Metropolitan Museum of Art
google books
*Grube, Ernst J.
“CERAMICS xiv. The Islamic Period, 11th–15th centuries,”

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

, V/3 *"Gulbenkian", ''Only the Best: Masterpieces of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon'', eds. Katharine Baetjer, James David Draper, 1999, Metropolitan Museum of Art, , 9780870999260
google books
*Holod, Renata, "Event and Memory: The Freer Gallery's Siege Scene Plate", ''Ars Orientalis'', vol. 42, 2012, pp. 194–219. JSTOR
JSTOR
Accessed 10 June 2020. *Komaroff, Linda, ''The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353'', 2002, Metropolitan Museum of Art, , 9781588390714
google books
* Michelsen, Leslee Katrina and Olafsdotter, Johanna
"Telling Tales: Investigating a Mīnāʾī Bowl"
chapter 4 in ''Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor of Renata Holod'', ed. David J. Roxburgh, 2014, BRILL, , 9789004280281 *Morgan, Peter
"Il-khanids, iv, Ceramics; Production"

* Needham, Joseph (ed), ''Science and Civilisation in China'', Volume 5, Part 12, 2004, Cambridge University Press, , 9780521838337
google books
*Osborne, Harold (ed), ''The Oxford Companion to the Decorative Arts'', 1975, OUP, *Savage, George, ''Pottery Through the Ages'', Penguin, 1959 *Suleman, Fahmida, "Ceramics", in ''Medieval Islamic Civilization: an Encyclopedia'', Vol. 1, 2006, Taylor & Francis, , 9780415966917
google books
*"Yale": Richard Ettinghausen,

Oleg Grabar Oleg Grabar (November 3, 1929 – January 8, 2011) was a French-born art historian and archeologist, who spent most of his career in the United States, as a leading figure in the field of Islamic art and architecture in the Western academ ...

and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, 2001, ''Islamic Art and Architecture: 650–1250'', Yale University Press, *Watson, Oliver (1985), ''Persian Lustre Ware'', 1985, Faber & Faber,
PDF www.academia.edu
*Watson, Oliver (2012), "Pottery under the Mongols" in ''Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan'', 2012, BRILL, Ed. Linda Komaroff, , 9789004243408
google books

External links

*{{EI3, last=McClary, first=Richard Piran, title=Mīnāʾī ware, year=2021, url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/minai-ware-COM_36442
"SCHOLAR FAVORITES: 12th–13th Century Mina’i Enamel Ware with Dr. Morris Rossabi"
Video (7:18) via YouTube, from the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design Iranian pottery Kashan 12th century in Iran 13th century in Iran