Lajvardina WaresCobalt and Gold

Provides the first comprehensive study of lajvardina as a class of ceramics, their distribution in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and their reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

• Addresses an important but still poorly understood type of medieval Iranian and Central Asian ceramic wares
• Defines the true scope of the extant corpus, and demonstrates the diversity of styles, forms and motifs
• Analysis is built on the unimpeachable unaltered corpus of unrestored archaeological fragments
• Integrates the study of later material produced in Russia and Central Asia into the corpus of lajvardina wares
• Provides the first ever comprehensive study of Ilkhanid and later Golden Horde variants of lajvardina ware

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.