Hispano-Moresque ware
Over the following centuries, they introduced two ceramic techniques to Europe: glazing with an opaque white tin-glaze, and lustreware, which imitates metallic finishes with iridescent effects.
[6] Though other types of painted pottery, not usually called Hispano-Moresque ware, were produced in Al-Andaluz earlier, firm evidence of lustreware production is not found before the early or mid-13th century, when it may have been begun by Egyptian potters escaping political disturbances.
An import from Malaga through Sandwich, Kent in England for the Spanish-born Queen Eleanor of Castile was recorded in 1289, consisting of "42 bowls, 10 dishes, and 4 earthenware jars of foreign colour (extranei coloris)".
[11] The "Fortuny Tablet", a unique plaque measuring 90 x 44 cm, has a garden-like design, inside a border with an inscription praising Yusuf III, Sultan of Granada (r. 1408-1417).
[12] After Yusuf's throne was inherited by an eight-year-old in 1418, the Nasrid kingdom went into a decline before its final conquest, and the production of fine pottery seems to cease abruptly about 1450, even though the name obra de Malequa ("Malaga work") continued to be used in Valencia for lustreware long afterwards.
In 1362 a cardinal commissioned floor-tiles in "obra de Malicha" ("Malaga work", probably meaning lustreware) for the Pope's Palais des Papes in Avignon from two masters in Manises, at least one with an Arabic name (though "Juan" as his forename).
[17] Barcelona in Catalonia in northeastern Spain, which was under Muslim rule from 718 to 801, became a centre for pottery much later, probably receiving immigrant Christian potters from Al-Andalus, especially Valencia, during the later Reconquista period.
It was important at first for wares resembling the brown and green decorated pottery of Paterna and in the 16th century for lustreware in a "warm silvery-gold", either reflecting different materials available, or a deliberate change in style.
The pieces "had to be spectacular and elegant, yet every category of vessel had a particular use" and on grand occasions all might be used, even though the largest platters spent most of the time on display propped up vertically on sideboards, as is shown in some contemporary paintings.
From about 1400 some elements, including the depiction of animals, which were probably first used for export wares seem to have become popular among local Muslim buyers also; two of the later "Alhambra vases" described above have pairs of gazelles.
[22] Many large Valencian dishes with typical complicated designs centring on a coat of arms are also decorated on the underside with boldly-painted animal figures occupying the whole space, often also taken from heraldry.
[28] Later wares usually have a coarse reddish-buff body, dark blue decoration and luster; by now their position as the most prestigious European pottery had been lost to Italian and other producers.
Alan Caiger-Smith describes the Valencian industry as the victim of its own success; as the wares initially produced for the very top of society, usually as bespoke commissions with personalized heraldry, were demanded by the expanding lesser nobility and bourgeoisie, both the size of pieces and their quality of decoration declined, with painting becoming more routine repetitions of simple motifs.
[17] Wares continued to be produced in a slow decline, now relying on relatively local demand for tiles and other decorated items, including votive offerings.
