Overglaze in the context of "Tin-glazing"

Lead-glazed earthenware is one of the traditional types of earthenware with a ceramic glaze, which coats the ceramic bisque body and renders it impervious to liquids, as terracotta itself is not. Plain lead glaze is shiny and transparent after firing. Coloured lead glazes are shiny and either translucent or opaque after firing. Three other traditional techniques are tin-glazed (in fact this is lead glaze with a small amount of tin added), which coats the ware with an opaque white glaze suited for overglaze brush-painted colored enamel designs; salt glaze pottery, also often stoneware; and the feldspathic glazes of Asian porcelain. Modern materials technology has invented new glazes that do not fall into these traditional categories.

In lead glazes, tints provided by impurities render greenish to brownish casts, with aesthetic possibilities that are not easily controlled in the kiln. The Romans used lead glazes for high-quality oil lamps and drinking cups. At the same time in China, green-glazed pottery dating back to the Han period (25–220 AD) gave rise eventually to the sancai ('three-color') Tang dynasty ceramics, where the white clay body was coated with coloured glazes and fired at a temperature of 800 degrees C. Lead oxide was the principal flux in the glaze. Polychrome effects (i.e. the colours) were obtained by using the oxides of copper (which turns green), iron (brownish yellow), and less often manganese (brown) and cobalt (blue).

Enamelled glass or painted glass is glass which has been decorated with vitreous enamel (powdered glass, usually mixed with a binder) and then fired to fuse the glasses. It can produce brilliant and long-lasting colours, and be translucent or opaque. Unlike most methods of decorating glass, it allows painting using several colours, and along with glass engraving, has historically been the main technique used to create the full range of image types on glass.

All proper uses of the term "enamel" refer to glass made into some flexible form, put into place on an object in another material, and then melted by heat to fuse them with the object. It is called vitreous enamel or just "enamel" when used on metal surfaces, and "enamelled" overglaze decoration when on pottery, especially on porcelain. Here the supporting surface is glass. All three versions of the technique have been used to make brush-painted images, which on glass and pottery are the normal use of the technique.

Imari ware (Japanese: 伊万里焼, Hepburn: Imari-yaki) is a Western term for a brightly-coloured style of Arita ware (有田焼, Arita-yaki) Japanese export porcelain made in the area of Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyūshū. They were exported to Europe in large quantities, especially between the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century.

Typically Imari ware (in the English use of the term) is decorated in underglaze blue, with red, gold, black for outlines, and sometimes other colours, added in overglaze. In the most characteristic floral designs most of the surface is coloured, with "a tendency to overdecoration that leads to fussiness". The style was so successful that Chinese and European producers began to copy it. Sometimes the different overglaze styles of Kakiemon and Kutani ware are also grouped under Imari ware.

Hispano-Moresque ware is a style of initially Islamic pottery created in Al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia), which continued to be produced under Christian rule in styles blending Islamic and European elements. It was the most elaborate and luxurious pottery being produced in Europe until the Italian maiolica industry developed sophisticated styles in the 15th century, and was exported over most of Europe. The industry's most successful period was the 14th and 15th centuries.

Around 711, the Moors conquered part of Spain. Over the following centuries, they introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with an opaque white tin-glaze, and lustreware, which imitates metallic finishes with iridescent effects. Hispano-Moresque wares use both processes, applying the paint as an overglaze which is then fired again. Lustreware was a speciality of Islamic pottery, at least partly because the use of drinking and eating vessels in gold and silver, the ideal in ancient Rome and Persia as well as medieval Christian societies, is prohibited by the Hadiths, with the result that pottery and glass were used for tableware by Muslim elites, when Christian medieval elites still normally used metal for both dishes and cups.