Majolica

majolica (məjŏl`ĭkə, məyŏl`–) or maiolica (məyŏl`ĭkə) [from Majorca], type of faience usually associated with wares produced in Spain, Italy, and Mexico. The process of making majolica consists of first firing a piece of earthenware, then applying a tin enamel that upon drying forms a white opaque porous surface. A design is then painted on and a transparent glaze applied. Finally the piece is fired again. This type of ware was produced in the ancient Middle East by the Babylonians, and the method remained continuously in use. It was extensively employed by the Hispano-Moresque potters of the 14th cent. By the mid-15th cent. majolica was popular in Italy, where it became justly famous through the decorations of the Della Robbia family. The method is still widely used in folk art.

Bibliography

See G. Liverani, Five Centuries of Italian Majolica (tr. 1960); M. Barnes and R. May, Mexican Majolica in Northern New Spain (1980).

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majolica

 Italian maiolica

Tin-glazed earthenware introduced from Moorish Spain by way of the island of Majorca and produced in Italy from the 14th century. Majolica is usually restricted to five colours: cobalt blue, antimony yellow, iron red, copper green, and manganese purple; the purple and blue were used, at various periods, mainly for outline. White tin enamel was used also, for highlights or alone on the white tin glaze. The most common shape of the pottery was a display dish, decorated in the istoriato style, a 16th-century Italian narrative style that uses the pottery body solely as support for a purely pictorial effect. See also delftware; Faenza majolica; faience; Urbino majolica.

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majolica, maiolica

a type of porous pottery glazed with bright metallic oxides that was originally imported into Italy via Majorca and was extensively made in Italy during the Renaissance

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majolica

A type of pottery decorated with an opaque white glaze and a colored overglaze; a type of faïence tile.

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Majolica 

(1) In the narrow sense, Italian ceramic articles of the 15th to 17th centuries with porous painted bodies and thematic decorations on raw and opaque tin glaze that were applied in such a way that corrections were not possible. Majolica was made in workshops in Faenza, Florence, Cafagiolo, Siena, Urbino, and Castel Durante. In Deruta and Gubbio much luster pottery was made. Italian majolica painting, including portraits and many-figured compositions on decorative dishes, plaques, and panels (for example, the works of Nicola Pellipario), and majolica sculpture (works of the della Robbia family) form a distinctive branch of art.

(2) In the broad sense, majolica includes wares with very porous bodies that are made of fired colored clay and covered with glaze. The pottery is characterized by massive form, a fluid silhouette, a brilliant glaze, and contrasting color combinations.

Majolica was produced in the ancient East (Egypt, Babylonia, and Iran) and in the medieval states of Middle, Central, and Southwest Asia. Between the 14th and the 18th century majolica was manufactured in European countries, including Spain, Germany, and France. In ancient Rus’, majolica was known as early as the 11th century. The architectural majolica of laroslavl’ and Moscow reached the height of its development in the 17th century (window platbands, portals, friezes, figures of saints, tile stoves). In the 18th century, majolica dishes, tiles, and small sculptures that primarily had monochromatic decorations on a white background were produced at the Grebenshchikov Plant in Moscow; polychromatic majolica was manufactured in the Gzhel’ workshops. At the outset of the 20th century, M. A. Vrubel’, V. M. Vasnetsov, A. Ia. Golovin, S. V. Maliutin, and other Russian artists made utilitarian majolica articles. In the 1930’s the Soviet sculptors I. G. Frikh-Khar, I. S. Efimov, and others created such articles.

Since the 1950’s many Soviet and foreign artists and ceramicists have worked with majolica (for example, F. Léger and P. Picasso). Modern majolica is characterized by experimentation and a search for new plastic and picturesque treatments of mass, glaze, and enamel. At present the term “majolica” designates ceramic wares consisting of white or colored faience bodies covered with colored glazes.

REFERENCE

Rackham, V. Italian Majolica. London, 1952.