Persian Lustre Tiles of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

• Main Author: Watson, O. J.
• Published: SOAS, University of London 1977
• Subjects: 930.1
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.476644

This thesis surveys the production of lustre tiles made in Kashan during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is the first study to classify by type and by date all major types of lustre tiling made during the century and a half of the operation of the kilns, and to gather what documentary material is available. The first chapter discusses the lustre technique, whose sophistication has an important bearing on the history of ' the ware. There follows an account of the arrival of the technique in Persia. The second chapter, which forms'the central core of the work, reviews the surviving material in three categories: star and cross tiles, frieze tiles and mihrabs or tombstones. Where possible tiles are grouped together and their inscriptions and decorations analysed. The third chapter lists and discusses the buildings in which lustre tiles were used, and reviews the individual lustre potters and their works. A list of dated pieces is appended. The classification of the tiles gives a clearer picture than was previously possible of the history of the ware, the levels of production, the structure of the workshops, the relationships between potters, and the range of inscriptions, decorations and tile types that were used in a single building. Two important features are revealed in this study. First that there is little evidence that lustre tiles were regularly used in secular buildings. The "secular" decoration, found on tiles in many religious buildings, must be interpreted in a religious fashion. Second that lustre tiling was never even a general form of religious architectural decoration, but was used by a minority sect - the twelver shi'ites - to decorate funerary monuments o