nished vase, which was refired in such a
way that the pieces were only raised to a dull red heat and were then
exposed to the vapours of the wood-fuel, glowing lustrous patterns were
left on the ware that looked like metal--but metal shot over with all
the hues of the rainbow, golden, rosy, purple and green. Numerous
fragments of this lustred pottery had been disinterred from the site at
Rhagae, and it was therefore assumed that the beautiful process was of
Persian origin, particularly as most of the examples then known bore
designs of distinctly Persian style. We are now inclined to think that
the process really arose in Egypt or in Syria, and was carried eastward
to Persia, just as it was afterwards carried westward to Spain. In
support of this view there is the written record of the Persian
traveller Nasiri Khosrau, who visited Old Cairo in the 11th century
(1035-1042). He was apparently familiar with the pottery of his own
country, and notes all the novel forms that he found in the bazaars of
Old Cairo, which was both a great trading emporium for the traffic of
East and West, and a pottery centre of note. He mentions, specially,
certain translucent bowls of earthenware decorated with colours
resembling a stuff called "bougalemoun," "the tints changing according
to the position which one gives to the vase." Such a description could
only apply to "lustred" pottery, and it would seem as if this process
must have been known in Egypt or Syria before it was practised in Persia
(see Plate V., 13th-century Syro-Persian). In any case the secret was
soon carried to Persia, for we have ample evidence that it was practised
at Rhagae in the next century.

[Illustration: FIG. 40.--Persian Ewer, white ground, with pattern in
brown copper lustre; the upper part has a blue ground. The mounting is
gilt bronze, Italian 16th-century work. (British Museum.)]

The earliest dated example of Persian lustred ware is a star-shaped tile
of the year A.D. 1217 (A.H. 614), decorated with spotted hares,
heraldically confronted, in a ground of lustre relieved by dots and
curls, and surrounded by an inscribed border. A vase in the Godman
collection bears the date A.D. 1231 (A.H. 629), and some of the
well-known "star and cross" tiles from Veramin belong to the year A.D.
1262. The early Persian lustre is chiefly known to us through the tiles
with which the walls of mosques and public buildings were decorated; the
more ephemeral vases, bowls and dis