Pombalino azulejos are Portuguese glazed tiles with geometric patterns of various colours.
The pombalino azulejos were produced in vast quantities when Lisbon was rebuilt after the devastating 1755 earthquake. The Marquis of Pombal (1699-1782) was Prime Minister of Portugal under King Joseph 1st and gave his name to this type of azulejos.
Cipriano Piccolpasso (1524-1579) was a renowned Italian potter during the Renaissance.
Piccolpasso was born in Castel Durante, a city in the duchy of Urbino, in Umbria, that was an important centre for the manufacture of maiolica. He published in 1557 the first comprehensive treatise on maiolica techniques: Li Tre Libre Dell’ Arte Del Vasaio (The 3 Books of the Potter’s Art). The treatise was written at the request of the French ambassador to Rome, cardinal François de Tournon, who was motivated by the improvement of French faience manufacturing. The manuscript is enriched with many drawings of Piccolpasso that explain in lively detail the basic procedures for maiolica production. The book includes a selection of designs for plate decoration. The manuscript is now conserved in London in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The expression overglaze is used when the decoration is painted on the already-fired glaze, and then fired again at lower temperature. Overglaze colours are thus superficial and therefore more fragile and susceptible to abrasion than under-glaze colours. This technique is known as petit feu in French.
Bernard Palissy (1510-1590) was a dedicated French potter, chemist, and enameler during the Renaissance.
He is renowned for his struggle to create new techniques of enameled ceramic ware known as “faïence” in France. According to his own writings, he was at times so poor that he had to use his furniture and floor boards as kiln fuel. He developed his own style of pottery, covered with life-sized replicas of amphibians, reptiles, insects, and plants. This type of ware, known as rustiques figulines (“rusticware”), became so admired that in 1563 he was named King’s Inventor of Rustic Ceramics, and in 1567 he was summoned by Catherine de Medici to decorate her palace of the Tuileries. Palissy rejected the idea that the biblical flood could have deposited fossils throughout the world, even on the highest mountaintops. For opposing such theological belief, and for being an alchemist and Hugenot, he was arrested and eventually died in the Bastille.
Natural metal oxides are used in glazing as colour pigments. The colours are revealed only once the glaze is fired in the kiln.
The 5 main oxides are:
– iron: brown and ochre
– copper: dark green
– cobalt: blue (the most used colour in azulejos and Delftware)
– manganese: aubergine colour (often combined with blue)
– antimony: yellow.
An under-glaze decoration is hand-painted upon the raw and unbaked glaze.
Colour pigments (see Oxides) are gently laid upon the unbaked glaze and then fired in the kiln together with the glaze. The firing lasts about 12 hours at a high temperature of about 1,000° C (or 1,820° F). Colours then merge with the glaze and are thus very resistant to abrasion. This technique is called grand feu in French (″high fire”).
Multan is a city of Punjab that was one of the most important trading centres of Islamic medieval India. The city is renowned for the presence of multiple Sufi shrines dating from that period. Most of those shrines are covered with Multan tile-work (see Kashi gari).
Multan is now in Pakistan.
Mudéjar is the name given to the individual Moors of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista. A Mudejar is not converted to Christianity as opposed to a “morisco”.
The Mudéjar style is a symbiosis of techniques and ways of creating resulting from Muslim and Christian cultures living side by side. It emerged as a ceramic and architectural style in the 12<sup>th</sup> century on the Iberian peninsula
Masséot Abaquesne (ca 1510 – ca 1560) is a renowned French potter born in Cherbourg, Normandy. His work is typical of the influence of the Italian Renaissance in France. He was often inspired by mythology and grotesque decorations. His studio was in Rouen. He made 2 famous and exquisite tile pavements in the 1550s. One for the castle of La Bâtie d’Urfé in central France (now partly exhibited in Le Louvre), and one for the Constable of Montmorency in his palace of Écouen near Paris (still in place). Abaquesne also produced over 4,000 apothecary jars with stout faces and wreath of fruit and flowers inspired by Della Robbia.
Maiolica (sometimes majolica) is an Italian word used to describe the production of tin-glazed pavement tiles and pottery during the Renaissance period.
It is thanks to the Moors that the technique of tin-glazed earthenware was brought to Europe, in the so-called Al-Andalus, modern day Spain. First in Málaga, in Andalusia, and later on in the region of Valencia, these Hispano-Moresque wares were exported to Italy and to the rest of Europe. The term maiolica probably derives from the name of Majorca, main island of the Baleares archipelago, as decorated ceramics were extensively exported to Italy through these islands. Some scholars think the word comes from Málaga.
In Italy, the production of tin-glazed earthenwares started as early as in the fourteenth century. It reached a peak in the early sixteenth century when it was exported throughout Europe.
Maiolica is a technique where the decoration is painted onto an unbaked tin-glazed ceramic piece (see under-glaze). Once the decoration is finished, the piece is fired to a temperature of about 1,000° Celsius (1,820° Fahrenheit). Motifs ranged from portraits to coats of arms, ornamental designs, religious motifs, and scenes from the myths of antiquity. Maiolica is known as faïence (sometimes faience) in French and English.
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