Who made this bowl?
An individual potter for this bowl is unknown. However we do know the techniques behind lusterware manufacture must have been sustained by passing the practice down from potter to potter, and taught to local ceramists as the practice traveled from region to region. The techniques behind lusterware production needed to be explicitly taught, as simply looking at a finished lusterware ceramic leaves no clues about the methods used in production or the intricacies of its manufacture.
Techniques behind luster production would have been closely guarded, due to the fact that the production materials and finished product were both expensive. Lusterware potters sought to monopolize this ceramic technique for their own monetary profit, and as such, knowledge of luster-making appears to have been restricted to families of specialist craftsmen who kept it to themselves.
Grace P. Morrissey, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2022
