What is this?
This footed bowl with a flared rim from the Worcester Art Museum exemplifies a luxury lusterware ceramic in the Kashan style. 8 inches wide and 3 1/8 inches tall, it was created by artisans in Rayy, Iran, between 1200 and 1299, during the height of lusterware production in the Seljuq empire. Lusterware ceramics are incredibly complex to manufacture as they require specialized metallic oxide glazes and multiple firings in the kiln. The materials and time-intensive nature of production made lusterware an expensive item. Lusterware's shimmering surface quality and metallic sheen made these ceramics aesthetically attractive, which fostered an appreciation across cultures. Members of the Islamic royal courts and later European crusaders used these ceramics as luxury feast ware.
The bowl's luster glaze and repetitive patterning within a set geometry create a sense of visual rhythm and energy while it still functions as dinnerware. We can break the pattern into eight trapezoidal segments, delineated by radiating bands originating from two concentric circles at the bowl's center. These elements create a sense of aesthetic consistency and order within the piece, enhanced by the monochrome reverse coloring. Reserve coloring is a term used to refer to lustreware done in only two colors, with white acting as the base color. In this example, golden brown luster is painted onto a creamy white base, thus reserving the bowl's figure and decorative elements in white. Monochrome reserve coloring has predominated Islamic lustreware since the 10th century. Using a single luster color enabled ceramicists to create clearer figural decorations, incorporating animals, birds, and humans with floral and vegetal motifs.
A seated figure in a roundel anchors the center of the bowl's decorative composition. The figure gazes off to the viewer's left and is shown wearing a headdress and garments with an intricate scroll and dot pattern. Although the figure's gender is ambiguous, scholarship on lusterware iconography points to their identification as a seated ruler or royal. Scroll flourishes on the bowl's exterior mimic the scroll patterning of the figure's clothing, visually linking this patterning across the entirety of the three-dimensional ceramic form. The bowl's overall aesthetic, materiality, and radiance made it a prestige item coveted by the elite in the Islamic world and beyond.
