TinGlazed Earthenware

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Tin-Glazed Earthenware

• First created in 9th century Baghdad
• Popular designs included Arabic lettering,
  geometric designs and animals
• Islam art carried into Moorish Spain then
  Portugal and Italy
• Renaissance Italy took tin-glazed earthenware and
  lustreware ideas and created Majolica (from the
  word Majorca, Spain) and brought it to the
  recognized art form we are most familiar with
  today

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Nishapur pottery

• Islam was a defining force in the daily lives of
  people of the region, and likewise had an effect
  on the arts as well. Following strictly the
  dictate that 'thou shalt not create any graven
  images,' Islamic artists were prohibited from the
  depiction of figures of people or animals in art.
  Instead the art of Islam abounds with floral
  motifs and intricate geometry and arabesques.
• The earliest, written, cursive form of Arabic is
  known as Kufic, and the bold, flowing script can
  be seen used as a border on this bowl from
  Nishapur, and reads 'Planning before work
  protects you from regret.' Inscriptions found on
  Islamic ceramics are usually of this type, benign
  admonishments toward leading a good life, and
  never include historical information.

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Islam Tin-Glazed Earthenware pre-cursor to
Italian Majolica

• When Islamic potters discovered more effective
  techniques for decorating their work, they were
  able to become more creative. They took existing
  design elements, like geometric patterns, and
  extended and compounded them. They transformed
  plant and flower forms into the intricate,
  flowing patterns of the Islamic arabesque. They
  flattened or stylized or idealized figural
  representation. And out of their own culture they
  invented something that had not existed before
  calligraphy as the sole decoration on a surface,
  which they carried to inspired heights.
• These four basic design types - geometric,
  arabesque, calligraphic and figural

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Arabesque

• Tile with arabesque decoration, early 15th
  century OttomanAnatolia (Bursa)Carved,
  glaze-painted, and gilded earthenware H. 11 1/2
  in. (29 cm), W. 6 3/4 in. (17.2 cm)Purchase,
  Friends of Islamic Art Gifts, 1998
  (1998.246)This tile matches a border frieze
  adorning the portal of the tomb of Sultan Mehmed
  I (r. 140321) in Bursa, where monuments were
  badly damaged in an 1855 earthquake. It has a
  deeply carved pattern of lattices formed by pairs
  of undulating vine scrolls that meet at regular
  intervals along the centerline. The interlacing
  of the arabesque lattices is complex, but clarity
  is achieved through the use of different colored
  glazes. The tile predates the period, later in
  the fifteenth century, of widespread Chinese
  influence on Ottoman Turkish ceramics. In its
  deep relief and choice of colors, it exhibits
  similarities to tiles of Timurid Central Asia
  dating from the late fourteenth century, a
  resemblance probably explained by the documented
  presence of Persian tileworkers in Bursa at that
  time.

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Arabesque

• The geometric designs on some early Nishapur
  pottery may look a little crude by contemporary
  standards. But the patterns contain intricacies
  and bold juxtapositions that clearly fed the High
  Renaissance Italian imagination and influenced
  the way we design today. Another Islamic design,
  arabesques (a rabeschi, as the Italian majolica
  potters called the style), almost undoubtedly was
  developed out of an extension of Greco-Roman
  plant and flower motifs. Arabesques are patterns
  based on flowing, rhythmic and often interlaced
  alternations and oppositions of leaf, stem and
  blossom. So intriguing is this type of design
  that it has shown up over time and in many places
  on everything from ceramics to carpets to
  architectural detail.

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Apothecary jar, 1431? Florence

• Crane with leaf foliage
• Influenced by Hispano-Moresque prototypes
• Thought to belong to the pharmacy of the
  Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova, Florence's oldest
  and most distinguished hospital.

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Pharmacy jar

• Late 15th century, Italian
• This jar is of a form used in pharmacies to store
  dry drugs. It probably comes from the Royal
  Pharmacy of the Castelnuovo at Naples. The
  portrait of a man painted on the jar strongly
  resembles Charles VIII of France, who entered
  Naples in triumph in 1495

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Armorial Plate (Tondino), ca. 152025

• Nicolò da Urbino (probably Nicola di Bagriele
  Sbarage) (Italian, active from ca. 1520, died
  1537/38)This plate is one of twenty-one
  surviving pieces of the most famous and elaborate
  maiolica service of the Renaissance, painted for
  Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, by Nicolò
  da Urbino, the most celebrated maiolica painter
  of his generation. The center of this dish shows
  Isabella's coat of arms surrounded by three of
  her personal emblems a musical scroll, a
  candelabrum with one lit candle, and a bunch of
  lottery tickets. On the rim is a portrayal of the
  musical contest between Apollo and Pan judged by
  King Midas, a subject recounted in Ovid's
  Metamorphoses. The subtle draftsmanship,
  coloring, and delicate execution of the expansive
  landscape setting reveal the artist's consummate
  skill. Another piece from this service is also in
  the Robert Lehman Collection.

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Talavera tile

• Created in Spain, usually on Terra Cotta clay
  body
• Designs based on mathematical principles
• Often four tiles made up one design

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Mexican tiles

• Symmetric vines design
• Rounded diamond
• Blue Clavel
• Talavereado

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Antique Spanish Granadino Fuente Charger

• A superb (large) early to mid 19th century
  Spanish "Granadino" fuente charger.This classic
  blue and white Spanish charger features a large
  standing bird surrounded by foliage and swirling
  ring borders. Beautiful deep cobalt glaze over a
  milky white slip. The small bowl is shown for
  scale only and is not part of this listing.
  Dimensions 15.5 inches diameter

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Process

• http//www.italianmajolica.com/majolica/making.htm
  l

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Italian Maiolica today

• http//www.ceramicadirect.com/Italian-ceramic-pott
  ery/ProductList.asp?CategoryNameFortheCollector
  CategoryId46