Lustre Pottery: Technique, Tradition and Innovation in Islam and the Western World

The technique of lustre has been the inspiration for some of the most beautiful pottery in the world. During the thousand years since its first use on ceramics in early ninth-century Iraq, its secrets have often been confined to a small circle of initiates. In this respect, as well as in its symbolism and its potters quest to produce wares possessing the qualities of gold, it has strong links with alchemy. Alan Caiger-Smith, a potter with an international reputation who has made a special name for himself by successfully reviving the art of lustre, covers the whole subject from Abbasid Iraq to the late twentieth century. He concludes with a chapter on alchemy and symbolism and three substantial chapters on technique: two of them describe past and present methods of producing lustre, and in the third, Frank Hamer, the well-known ceramic scientist, answers a series of questions on the science of lustre.