Lajvardina Wares

This book examines the well-known but still poorly understood corpus of lajvardina ware from Iran, Central Asia and Russia. Acting as a follow-up volume to Mina'i Ware: A Reassessment and Comprehensive Study of Iranian Polychrome Overglaze Wares Through Sherds (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), it employs a broadly similar methodological approach to the next phase in the development of overglaze painted wares. Most vessels in museums are rebuilt, often from pieces of multiple different vessels with extensive plaster fill and modern overpaint. This is similar to mina’i wares, but, unlike the earlier technique, the majority of extant lajvardina wares are tiles, and not subject to the same level of restoration and overpainting. Beginning with a study of the process of transition from mina’i to lajvardina (with a shift from primarily white glaze to cobalt blue, a decline in figural decoration and a proliferation of new vessel forms), the book then moves on to address the extant corpus of tiles and vessels and integrates the later, related, lajvardina wares produced in Central Asia and Russia in the fourteenth century for the first time. Finally, the book examines the reception, trade, publication and display of lajvardina from the late nineteenth century to today.