The designs on Safavid lustreware are purely Iranian, and owe nothing to Chinese designs, so prevalent in underglaze blue painted wares. Potters revived a three-hundred year old Iranian decorative technique in the second half of the Seventeenth century. However, the sources for the designs are found in contemporary manuscript illuminations, some dated about 1675.

This ceramic vessel is the base of water-pipe for smoking tobacco, known as a "kalian". The fashion for smoking tobacco in Iran became fashionable in the 17th century. This base contained water and was fitted with two long metal pipes, one to a cup holding burning tobacco and the other a mouthpiece; the smoke from the tobacco was drawn through the water to cool it. These are also known as hookah, huqqa, qalian, qalyan qaliyan, narghile, shisha and hubble-bubble.