Tin-glazed earthenware
Loza estannífera (vidriado blanco opaco de estaño)
- Date
- c. 800 · confidence medium
- Place
- Basra, Iraq
- Credited to
- Abbasid potters of Basra
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Lead glaze made opaque with tin oxide that covers earthenware with a white surface for painting, imitating imported Chinese porcelain. It is the origin of maiolica, lustreware and Delftware.
There are much earlier tin-opacified glazes in Egypt and Mesopotamia (2nd millennium BCE), but tin-glazed earthenware as a continuous production originates in Abbasid Iraq.
What it led to
- cobalt-blue painted ceramics
- Italian maiolica and Talavera and Delft ware
- lustreware