Lakabi ware

Arthur Lane sees plain white carved wares in vogue in twelfth-century Persia, followed by carved wares under a single coloured glaze, and then a third step: using glazes of different colours side by side on one vessel, the designs being carved in a kind of cloisonné manner to separate them. ¹ The technique succeeded precariously on open dishes, but on upright jars the colours tended to run down. ¹

A rich blue, yellow, purple and green were used, in luminous tones from the dark pools in the hollows to the thin wash on the raised parts where the white body showed through. ¹ Lane describes the dish with a dancer, drummer and harpist and rejects the suggestion that it derives from a Chinese source, since every detail, including the dancer's head-dress, has parallels in Saljuq Islamic art. ¹

These polychrome wares were nicknamed lakabi ("painted"); they are of the same fine hard paste as the best white and monochrome carved wares, so Lane thinks they came from the same factories, perhaps at Kashan. ¹ They were exported widely: pieces have been found in Egypt, including a kiln-waster from Fustat that shows local imitation. ^{1 2} The technique was soon given up as too uncertain, and the future lay with painted decoration. ¹