Posts Tagged ‘islamic world’

The use of tiles as an architectural element, either as roofing or as decoration for walls, floors, or ceilings, has been a feature of most cultures. In the Middle East, glazed tiles have had a long tradition
in creating cool interiors. After the death of Muhammad (AD 632), the culture of Islam expanded rapidly throughout the region, spreading Islamic philosophy and arts. In Iberia, the westernmost outpost of the Islamic world, this influence is particularly evident in such building, as the Alhambra in Granada.
EUROPE
In Italy tin-glazed earthenware reached new heights in the late-15th and 16th centuries, and Italian tiles were first used for pavements in churches. Migrating potters transmitted their skills from Italy to France
and The Netherlands, and the tin-glazed tiling tradition continued from its epicentre in Antwerp (now in Belgium). In order to escape persecution by their Spanish overlords in the 1560s, many potters fled Antwerp for Rotterdam, Middelburg, Amsterdam, and Delft in the northern Netherlands. By the 1660s and 1670s Dutch potters had adopted a sober blue-and-white palette depicting local interests and activities. In Germany, and many other northern and central European countries, decorative tiles, mostly moulded in relief and covered in either a brown or a green monochrome glaze, were used mainly for cladding the exteriors of stoves.
From the 16th century until the latter half of the
18th century, when they went out of fashion, tin-glazed riles were made in large quantities in Britain. The range and variety of British tiles is great and offers the collector a fertile hunting-ground. From the late 18th century until the latter half of the 19th, decorative tileworks formed little or no part of Western interiors, but after the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, tiles began to reappear, mainly as fire surrounds but sometimes used either as a tile picture or as a series of repeated patterns creating an exotic interior. Both Minton & Co. (est. 1798) and the designer William De Morgan (1839-1917) embraced the Aesthetic Movement and designed tiles
in Japanese, Turkish, and Persian styles. Although a few were hand-painted, the majority were transfer-printed.
NORTH AMERICA
Tiles were manufactured in North America from the second half of the 19th century. By the mid-1870s such firms as the American Encaustic Tiling Co. (est. 1875) in Zanesville, Ohio, and the Star Encaustic Tile Co. (est. 1876) in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, were making mosaic and inlaid floor-tiles. The Low Art Tile Co. (1877-93) in Chelsea, Massachusetts, produced glazed relief tiles that could compete with the best English tiles. At the Grueby Pottery (est. 1894) in Boston, Massachusetts, a variety of tiles in soft colours with matt glazes was made. Other factories making art tiles included the Trent Tile Co. (est. 1882) in Trenton, New Jersey, and the Rookwood Pottery (est.. 1880) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• early tiles tend to be much thicker than the usual 6mm (approx.) of 18th- and 19th-century tiles; sizes became more uniform in the 19th century
• REPRODUCTIONS collectors should beware of reproduction transfer-printed tiles made in the late 1980s and 1990s
• COLLECTING tiles from Victorian fireplaces arc available in large numbers; Dutch tiles can be expensive; tile panels and pictures are rare and are usually very expensive; Iznik tiles are among the most expensive tiles available and can measure about 38cm ( 15in) in width

Spain’s major contribution to European ceramics history is lustreware. The technique for firing lustred pottery was first developed in the early Islamic world, probably in the 9th century. The Moors conquered Spain in the 8th century, but it was probably not until the mid-13th century that lustred pottery was made there.
LUSTREWARE
The most important centres for lustreware were first at Malaga and later at Manises (near Valencia) in southern Spain. The earliest wares show a strong Islamic influence, with Kufic (Arabic) script, and such motifs as the tree of life, the “Hand of Fatima”, and knot patterns. The Output consisted mainly of dishes, bowls, pitchers, albarelli (drug jars ), jars, and tiles. Lustre itself varies in colouring; toward the end of the 15th century it became
redder, and later in the 17th century a brash coppery colour. During the late 14th and early 15th centuries   it is often difficult to distinguish one centre of production from another.
Popular 15th-century motifs include bryony, crowns, fern-like leaves, or acacia (the latter is often used alone), parsley flowers, cotton stalks, vines, and ivy leaves. Other tiny geometric patterns were also used as ground
LATER SPANISH POTTERY
Glazed earthenware appears to have been made in Talavera de la Reina, near Toledo, and at Puente del Arzobispo, from at least the first half of the 16th century. Early    mainly
wares were decorated     in an Italian or a Flemish style, until a regional style emerged in the late 16th century. Dishes, basins, jugs, and other domestic wares were made in increasing quantities to replace silverware, the use of which was severely restricted after 1601 with the introduction of  sumptuary laws. Dishes, of which a large number survive, were painted in high-fired colours – brown, a brilliant green, ochre, and blue. The most popular subjects were soldiers, bust portraits, animals, birds, and coats of arms surrounded by a framework of partially hatched foliage. Among the more successful types are scenes with equestrian figures, hunting scenes, and animals careering amid curly foliage. Apart from the
wares already-    the range included albarelli, amphoras, and holy water stoups from c.1560 to 1650. Many blue-and-white wares were also painted in the
manner of  late Ming export porcelain.
In 1727 a factory was established in Alcorn, north of Valencia, which soon became the foremost ceramic factory in Spain, making a high-quality faience called loza fina. na. With the help of craftsmen such as Edouard Roux from Moustiers in France, a wide range of
beautifully modelled and painted wares was produced. Output included animal-form spice-pots, animal-shaped tureens like those made in Strasbourg, and trompe Poeil dishes decorated with fake comestibles. Decoration was inspired by early Moustiers with blue grotesques or polychrome lambrequins, dwarfs, and fantastic creatures. In many cases it is very difficult to distinguish Alcora from Moustiers ware, although the former is composed of a fine reddish clay while the latter is usually of a warm buff clay. The success of Alcora encouraged other Spanish factories to adopt the French style.
In common with other European factories after 1800, Spanish potters continued in the established traditions. Generally the output consisted mainly of more utilitarian objects such as basins, dishes, and jugs intended for the domestic market or for the tourist trade. The themes are mostly simplified renditions of 17th- and 18th-century wares, including animals –the hare, the deer, and the bull – almost all of which are set amid modestly drawn vegetation; armorial ornament; geometrical designs using concentric circles or simple repeated motifs; and foliated decoration. Whatever the type of decoration, the wares are usually painted with bold brushstrokes in the old “hot” colours – green, manganese, yellow, and ochre – and sometimes with a pinkish puce that was virtually unknown before the 19th century. This later production is of variable quality, ranging from crude, gritty ware to the slick, hard-edged appearance of modern mass-produced ware.
•    GLAZE Arzobispo and Talavera: hard and glassy
•    WARES tableware, drug jars, basins, ewers, vases, tiles
•    PALETTI lustreware: red hue and later a brash coppery colour; Arzobispo and Talavera: dominated by rich green, blue, and ochre, with manganese detailing; Alcorn: blue and white or polychrome
•    DECORATION lustreware: mainly small floral or geometric designs enclosing an armorial bearing and later with large feathery leaves, fish, and other animals; faience: Arzobispo and Talavera wares were vigorously painted with landscapes, figures, or animals; Alcora: lambrequins and arabesques similar to Moustiers
•    IMPORTANT CENTRES OF PRODUCTION Malaga and
Manises (lustreware), Puente del Arzobispo, Talavera de la Reina, Alcora
Marks
Early lustreware is never marked; Talavera: wares Were never marked before the 19th century; later they were frequently marked with the full name
Alcora factory wares (1727–c.1785) marked in manganese brown

Middle East Pottery

The countries and regions that embraced early Islam were ideally located to absorb the cultural, commercial, and technical cross-currents of the early medieval world. Chinese commodities were one of the major influences in Islamic lands – an area that stretched from India to the Atlantic Ocean. Trade with China was well established by the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906), since many Arabs were resident in Guangzhou (Canton), and in addition to spices, perfumes, and silks the Chinese sent ceramics to the Middle East.
EARLY WARES
From the 9th century, potters in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) were so inspired by Chinese wares that they strove to imitate them. The first types of ware made were buff or red earthenwares covered with a tin glaze. In an effort to simulate metals potters also developed the lustre technique, and during the next 300 years this method of decoration spread through Islamic countries, reaching Spain in the 13th or 14th century. Tin-glazed earthen-wares and lustre wares were two of the most important types of pottery bequeathed to Europe by the brilliant Islamic ceramic tradition. In eastern Persia (now Iran) the crisply contoured 10th- and 11th-century slipwares of Nishapur and Samarkand were subtly decorated with abstract leaf or geometric motifs and Kufic script.
PERSIAN WARES
Unique to the Islamic world is fritware, a glassy composition perhaps developed to copy imported Chinese porcelains produced during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). This grainy, white-bodied ware is often covered in a viscous, deep turquoise-blue glaze. Between c.1215 and 1334 plain and lustred wares were made in the town of Kashan, south of Tehran; the technique was probably introduced to Persia in the 12th century by Egyptian potters.
The sophisticated polychrome Mina’i (enamel)
wares of late-12th- or 13th-century Persia may often
seem crowded and confused, but they are nonetheless
outstanding examples of the Islamic decorator’s art.
Mina’i pottery was made in Rayy (now Rhages) near
Tehran, and is decorated with figures and painted in a wide range of colours. Many examples of early Mina’i ware are painted with large-scale figures in the manner of contemporary lustreware, but later the emphasis was
on small-scale, narrative subjects.
Later Persian wares, made during the
Safavid (1501-1732) and subsequent periods, include those from Meshed (eastern Persia), Kirman (western Persia), and Kubachi (northern Persia), most of which were painted in the style of late Ming and Transitional Chinese porcelains. The bodies, glazes, and decorations of these Persian wares Lire very similar and it is difficult to tell them apart.
IZNIK AND KOTAHYA
In the 16th century, extremely fine copies of blue-andwhite Chinese wares were made by the potters in Iznik (east of  Istanbul) and Kutahya in central Anatolia. The potters in these towns created superb, crisply painted
wares with swirling and scrolling foliage, painted either in blue or in a combination of turquoise, green, and, later, a thick red (Armenian bole). In addition to conventional decorative pottery vessels and dishes, Iznik and Damascus potters produced some of the finest tileworks for mosques and secular buildings. These latter wares were highly influential in late 19th-century Europe, as seen in, for example, the work of the English designer William De Morgan (1839-1917).
KEY FACTS
Early wares
•    BODY buff or red earthenware
•    GLAZE tin oxide
•    LUSTRE ruby, brown, yellow, black, red
•    TYPES tin-glazed wares; lustre wares
•    DECORATION fusion of Chinese and Islamic designs, usually abstract
Persian wares
•    BODY Mina’i: coarse; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: white frit paste
•    GLAZE Mina’i: creamy; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: thick and soft
•    DECORATION Mina’i: underglaze colours and overglaze enamels; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: resemble each other; black design outline may suggest a Meshed piece
Turkish wares
•    BODY Iznik: greyish buff, grainy, and absorbent; Kutahya: buff and thinly potted
•    GLAZE Iznik: translucent, but slightly bluish tone; Kutahya: irregular, gathers in bluish or greenish pools
•    STYLES Iznik: “Golden Horn” (c.1530) decorated with knotted pencilled scrolls; “Damascus” (c.1550-70) very sumptuous, with large-scale floral subjects and saw-edged leaf (saz); “Rhodian” (c.1555-1700) mainly floral; Chinese-style blue-and-white wares
•    PALETTE Iznik: wide range of colours dominated by turquoise and a scaling-wax red (Armenian bole)
•    DECORATION Kutahya: crude, floral, and figural
Marks
Islamic pottery is rarely marked, although individual potters’ marks do occasionally appear; corruptions of late Ming seal marks are used on Persian pottery