Abu'l Qasim bin Ali bin Muhammed bin Abu Tahir was a historian to the Mongol Court and a member of the Abu Tahir family of potters, one of a handful of Islamic families who controlled the manufacturing process of lusterware in the 12th and 13th centuries AD. In his book The Virtues of Jewels and the Delicacies of Perfume, Abu'l Qasim included a chapter on ceramics which revealed part of the recipe for lusterware, an exotic, highly arcane method of producing lustrous lights on pottery in amber, green, brown, yellow, red, and red-black colors.
But Abu'l Qasim's description only goes part of the way towards understanding the development of the ancient technique of lusterwares. The successful lusterware process involved painting precious metals--copper and silver--onto glazed vessels, producing a lustrous golden shine. After firing, the the vivid colors of the glaze sparkled with blue and yellow iridescence. When the potters added lead to the glaze mixture, they produced a metallic shining effect with gold lights.
The aim of transformation of lesser metals into gold is one of the hallmarks of medieval alchemy: the potters may have believed that the lustre process actually transformed silver and copper into gold. However, recent scientific study has demonstrated that the golden shine exhibited by silver lustres is a consequence of the nano-size of the metal silver particles which formed it.
Sources
This project is based on the ongoing research of Trinitat Pradell and colleagues. The main sources utilized for the project are listed on the definition page for lusterware. A timeline for the Islamic civilization is also available for consultation.
An excellent source for further information about Islamic ceramics in general with much data on lustres is the Ashmolean Museum's Web-Based Teaching Course on Islamic Ceramics.
