Persian potters invented the technique for successful underglaze painting on earthenware when they discovered that pigments such as cobalt and manganese, which tended to run under a lead glaze, would remain stable under an alkaline glaze.

The Mongol dynasty of the Ilkhanids unified Asia through its vast empire. By the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, when the Mongols also ruled China, an unprecedented level of artistic exchange ensued. This eventually led to the development of underglaze blue decorated porcelains in China and the appearance of Chinese motifs in Persian art.