How it began
Mina'i ceramics were made in the Kashan region of Iran in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Potters who settled there introduced an artificial pure-white ceramic body known as fritware, together with luster painting and stable underglaze painting. A study by Dana Norris and Oliver Watson calls mina'i decoration their most spectacular invention.
How it works
The vessel was first glazed, in an opaque white or turquoise, and given its main glaze firing. Painters then applied enamel colors on top of the fired glaze, sometimes with gold leaf, and the piece was fired again to fix them. Working over the glaze allowed precise painting in several bright colors, so potters could produce complex patterns and detailed narrative scenes. Wikipedia describes mina'i as the first pottery to use overglaze enamels.
Who pushed back
Production flourished for perhaps 50 years before the Mongol invasions of the early 13th century interrupted it for about four decades. Work resumed for roughly 70 years under the Mongol Ilkhanid rulers and then declined in the 1340s. The authors describe the ware as belonging to a novel but brief period of overglaze enameling in the history of ceramics.
What lasted
Mina'i ware holds a place in ceramic history as the first pottery decorated with enamels over the glaze. Researchers describe the Kashan pieces as a novel period of overglaze enameling technology, in which new colors produced attractive and dynamic designs. A treatise on ceramic techniques attributed to Abu'l Qasim of Kashan is one of the historical documents that scholars use to study how these wares were made.
Where it stands today
Mina'i wares are easy to forge and to "improve". From early in the modern trade, dealers repainted plain pieces, built vessels from unrelated shards and filled missing parts. Museums now use visible and ultraviolet photography, infrared reflectography and radiography to reveal such restorations without taking the objects apart.
