Hispano-moresque Pottery.

This numerous and now well-defined class of wares was a few years since indiscriminately grouped with the lustred Maiolica of Italy, in which country the larger number of specimens now in our collections had been preserved, and whence they have been procured. Many hesitated to believe in their Spanish origin, thinking it more probable that they were the work of Moorish potters established in the sister peninsula. The correspondence, however, of technical character with the “azulejos,” the well-known tiles which adorn the palace of the Alhambra at Seville, and with the celebrated “jarra” or Alhambra vase, as also a marked difference between these and any wares of known Italian manufacture, led to the conviction that they must be of Spanish origin, and the work of the Moorish potters and their descendants who had been established in that country.

Under this belief they were classed together as Hispano-arabian enamelled and lustred wares, but this appellation would connect them with the so-called Saracens who conquered that country in A.D. 712. The first Arab invaders were themselves expelled in 756 by Abd-el-Rhama, who caused himself to be proclaimed caliph at Cordova. This city thus became the great centre of his power, and here was erected the mosque of which the decoration attests the exquisite oriental taste of its founders. The ornamental wall tiles on this building are of truly Hispano-arabian manufacture.

The rule of the successors of Abd-el-Rhama ended and the line became extinct in 1038, soon after which time the Moorish conquest was completed. In 1235 Granada became the chief seat of the Moorish rulers, and there they erected the fortress-palace of the Alhambra about 1273. After an occupation of the country for four centuries the Moors were conquered in 1492. The Christian element would then predominate in the decoration of the pottery; and in 1566 the last blow was struck at Moorish art by the promulgation of a decree prohibiting the speaking or writing of their language, and forbidding the use to men and women of their national dress and veil, and the execution of decorative works in the Moresque style.

When first recognized as a distinct family these wares were found to be difficult of classification, from the entire absence of dates or names of manufactories. Labarte and others considered the copper-lustred pieces to be the earlier, but Mr. Robinson, with his usual acuteness, saw in the ornamentation of various examples reasons for reversing this arrangement, and suggested one which subsequent observation has only tended to confirm. He placed those pieces having a decoration in a paler lustre with interlacings and other ornaments in manganese and blue, coats of arms, &c., in the earlier period; those having the ornament in the paler lustre only, without colour, of nearly equal date, as also some of the darker coppery examples with shields of arms; and of a later period those so glaring in copper-coloured lustre as to be more painful than pleasing to the eye.

M. Davillier (to whose researches into the history of these wares we are greatly indebted) considers that in all probability Malaga was the earliest site of the manufacture, and argues that its maritime situation and trade with the east and its proximity to Granada would warrant that opinion, which is strengthened by the earliest documentary evidence yet brought to light. One Ibn-Batoutah a native of Tangier, writing in 1350 after journeying through the east, states that “at Malaga, the beautiful gilt pottery or porcelain is made, which is exported to the most distant countries.” He makes no mention of a fabrique at Granada in describing that city, and we may therefore reasonably conclude that Malaga was the centre of this industry in the Moorish kingdom, and if so there is great probability that the celebrated Alhambra vase was made there. From the style of its ornamentation, the form of the characters in the inscriptions, and other inferences, the date of this piece may be fairly assigned to the middle of the 14th century, which would be about the same period as that traveller’s visit to the city. It has nevertheless been ascribed by others to an earlier time, about 1320. This vase is so generally and well known that we need only allude to its characteristic form and richly decorated surface. It is said to have been found in the 16th century under the pavement of the Alhambra together with several others, all of which were filled with gold; a tradition which may, perhaps, have some foundation in fact.

The Alhambra vase was copied at SÈvres in 1842, and since by the Messrs. Deck in faience, of the original size after a cast and photographs procured by M. Davillier. This last is now in the South Kensington museum.

The fabrique of Malaga existed in the sixteenth century; and the plateau engraved p. 78 was probably made there. We learn from Lucio Marineo writing of the memorable things of Spain in 1517, that “at Malaga are made also very beautiful vases of faience.” After this date no further record is found, and M. Davillier thinks it probable that the works gradually declined as those of Valencia increased in importance, and that by the middle of the sixteenth century they had entirely ceased. He attributes to these potteries three large deep basins and two vases in the hÔtel Cluny at Paris, which are covered with designs in golden reflet and blue of great similarity to those of the Alhambra vase, and also the fine vase from the Soulages collection at South Kensington.

After the fabrique of Malaga that of Majorca is thought to be the most ancient, and the extension of its manufactures by commerce is indirectly proved by the adoption of the term “Majolica” by the potters of Italy for such of their wares as were decorated with the metallic lustre. Scaliger, writing in the first half of the sixteenth century, speaks highly of the wares of the

Balearic islands: but not being an “expert” in ceramic productions, after praising the porcelain recently brought from China, admires what he calls their imitations made at Majorca. “We call them (he says) ‘majolica,’ changing one letter in the name of the island where we are assured that the most beautiful are made:” an interesting testimony to the importation of these wares into Italy and the knowledge of their origin, as also to the derivation of the term applied to the home manufacture of Pesaro and Gubbio.

Although presumably of much earlier date no record of this pottery occurs till that of Giovanni di Bernardi da Uzzano, the son of a rich Pisan merchant, who in 1442 wrote a treaty on commerce and navigation, published by Paquini, in which he speaks of the manufactures of Majorca and Minorca, particularly mentioning faience which “had then a very large sale in Italy.” We have evidence that the principal seat of the manufacture was at Ynca, in the interior of the island; and in confirmation of this discovery some plates have been observed by M. Davillier in collections on which the arms of that island are represented. One is in the hÔtel Cluny, and is probably of the fifteenth century. It is Moresque in style with illegible inscriptions in an odd mixture of the Arabic and Gothic characters; the lustre of a red colour and the arms in the centre. These arms are, paly gules and or, on a fess argent a dog in the act of bounding, sable.

There would seem also to have been a fabrique at IviÇa for Vargas, in his description of the Balearic islands, says, “It is much to be regretted that IviÇa has ceased to make her famous vases of faience, destined for exportation as well as for local consumption.” But of their precise nature he gives us no information and we have no knowledge.

The kingdom of Valencia in the time of the Romans was noted for its works in pottery; those produced at Saguntum, the present Murviedro, having a great reputation at that period according to Pliny, who mentions the jasper red pottery of Saguntum where 1,200 workmen were employed.

To these, after the occupation of the Goths, succeeded the Arab workmen who accompanied the Mussulman conquest in 711. Again, when the Moors were in 1239 subjected to Christian domination the potters’ art was considered of sufficient importance to claim a special charter from the king, who granted it to the Saracens of Xativa, a small town now called San-Felipe. This charter provides that every master potter making vases, domestic vessels, tiles, “rajolas” (an Arabic name for wall-tiles, synonymous with “azulejos”), should pay a “besant” annually and freely pursue his calling.

Sir Wm. Drake in his notes on Venetian ceramics cites an ordinance of the Venetian senate in 1455, declaring that no earthenware works of any kind should be introduced into the dominions of the Signory except crucibles (“correzzoli”) and Majolica of Valencia; an important fact proving the value that was attached to the Spanish lustre wares in Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. The woodcut p. 81 represents a fine plateau at South Kensington, golden lustred; of about the year 1500.

Marineo Siculo, writing in 1517, devotes a chapter to the utensils and other objects of faience made in Spain, in which he states that “the most esteemed are those of Valencia, which are so well worked and so well gilded;” and Capmany records a decree of the municipal council of Barcelona in 1528 relative to the exportation of faience to Sicily and elsewhere, in which “la loza de Valencia” is named. Again Barreyros a Portuguese, in his “Chorographia,” praising the pottery of Barcelona says that it is “even superior” to that of Valencia. The expulsion of the Moors in 1610 by Philip III. gave the fatal blow to this industry, as we learn from contemporary authors that many of the banished artizans were potters (“olleros”).

From time immemorial St. John the evangelist has been particularly venerated at Valencia, and in the grand processions of Corpus Christi the emblematic eagle is carried, holding in his beak a banderole on which is inscribed the first sentence of his gospel: “In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum.” On some pieces of Hispano-moresque ware this sentence is inscribed, and the eagle sometimes covers the front, sometimes the back. There is therefore reason to infer that these were made in one of the fabriques of Valencia, and if so their style would be to a considerable extent typical of the Valencian pottery. The decoration was probably inspired by the wares of Malaga, and it is likely that many of the pieces of the fifteenth century, bearing inscriptions in Gothic characters with animals, &c. in blue, may be of this fabrique.

In the British museum is a plate painted with an antelope and Moresque ornament in blue, and with the inscription “Senta Catalina Guarda Nos:” others occur, though very rarely, with Spanish inscriptions. At the commencement of the 17th century the Valencian wares had lost nearly all their Moresque character, and the employment of the copper lustre only was retained: the designs having figures in the costumes of that period and coarse leafage or birds with “rococo” ornaments.

It would thus appear that the fabrique of Malaga was the most ancient, and that of Valencia the most important in Spain; but other potteries existed, and their productions were widely distributed. The woodcut represents a Valencian dish with golden lustre, of the 15th century. That these wares were imported into England is proved by fragments found in London, on one of which, in the British museum, is represented a man in the costume of the period of Henry the fourth, about 1400.

Makers’ names have never been observed upon pieces of this pottery, and marks are very rarely met with. The above marks are on the back of two small plates with deep centres, in which is painted a shield of arms bearing a crowned eagle with open wings in blue, the rest of the surface being diapered with small vine or briony leaves and interlaced tendrils in concentric order, of golden lustre on the creamy white ground.

These pieces are perhaps of the same service, probably of Malaga or Valencia, and may be of the earlier half of the 15th century; they are in the writer’s possession. In Mr. Henderson’s rich collection is a vase on one side of which is the inscription, of which we give a facsimile:

It reads “Illustrissimo Signore Cardinale D’Este in Urbe RomÆ.”

Specimens of a lustred ware have been brought from Sicily, differing materially from that of Spain, and perhaps forming a connecting link between that and the earlier Persian pottery. They are formed of an ordinary clay covered with an earthy or stanniferous (?) wash, which is again coated with a rich translucent blue glaze on which a diapering of vermicular ornament in coppery lustre covers the whole piece, except that the edges and handles are also painted in lustre. This ware is by no means common; it occurs in the form of plates, covered bowls, and “albarelli:” and is supposed to be the workmanship of Moorish potters at Calata-Girone.