The Della Robbia ceramics are a type of maiolica bas-reliefs created by a Florentine family of sculptors.

Luca Della Robbia (around 1400-1482) is the founder of the atelier. He perfected a process for making clay reliefs and figures permanent by glazing them. Originally, these were figures on a blue background. His medallions and reliefs of the Madonna and Child are especially notable. He later added glazes of many colours, especially green and yellow, to the bas-reliefs, usually with a wreath of fruit and flowers surrounding the figures. Many of the Della Robbia terra-cottas are still in their original settings on buildings in Florence and Siena.

 

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Cuerda seca means dry rope in Spanish. It is a technique used in ceramic by which outlines are drawn on the surface of the tile with a syringe containing a greasy substance coloured by an oxide of manganese. The resulting outlines prevent the coloured glazes from mingling. The greasy substance disappears during the baking of the tile and leaves a black line.

This technique was first developed in the late 14^th century in Persia, and was thereafter used in Al-Andalus (present day Spain). Beautiful examples of hispano-moresque cuerda seca tiles are still in place in the Alhambra of Granada or in the Alcazar of Seville.

This technique was again much used in the Art Nouveau ceramic tiles and murals.

 

           

 

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Celadon is a type of Chinese porcelain ware with a light blue-green shade. It is also known as greenware.

The word is probably a corruption of the name Sãlãh-ed-dîn or Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, who is said to have given forty pieces of celadon wares to the Sultan of Damascus in 1171. It is sometimes suggested that the name derives from the colour of the costume of the shepherd Céladon, main character of L’Astrée, a famous 17^th century French novel. The Chinese word for celadon is Doh chin which means green bean glaze, while the Japanese name is Seiji.

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A stove tile is a ceramic tile that is thick so as to keep and diffuse warmth. Stove tiles are often showing relief. They are glazed and sometimes decorated. The first ceramic stove appeared in Germany in the 13^th century.

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A ceramic biscuit is a piece of ceramic that has been fired once but not yet glazed.

This can be the final state of the ceramic, for instance in the case of bisque porcelain, or of unglazed earthenware, usually called terracotta.

 

 

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Jean Bérain (1640-1711) was a French draughtsman, painter and engraver of ornament during the reign of Louis XIV. He reinterpreted in an original way the grotesque of the Renaissance which then took the name of arabesque. He published many prints and a collection of engravings that will allow the dissemination of this fanciful style called “décor à la Bérain” or Bérainesque. This style can be observed in particular on the decorations of ceramic ware of various French manufactures, such as Rouen, Marseilles, or Moustiers.

     

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Azulejos are tin-glazed ceramic tiles produced in Spain since the 14^th century. The word does not come from azul (blue in Spanish) but from the Arabic al-zulay (little polished stone). The term was first used to designate a composition of coloured tiles aimed at copying Roman North-African mosaics. Azulejo then became the common word for an entirely decorated tile of about 13 to 15 centimetres (5 to 6 inches).

Panels of azulejos were first created in Seville around 1500 by an Italian painter, Francisco Niculoso. Niculoso had probably been trained in a Della Robbia family workshop in Florence. The art of azulejos was developed and brought to its highest expression in Portugal during the 17^th and 18^th century.

           

See many examples in our gallery of azulejos.

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Clay is a sedimentary earthy material that is more or less plastic when moist, to allow modeling, and becomes hard when it is baked.

 

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