Talk:Majolica
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In the 15th century Italian majolica changed. The colors became more vivid by adding a second layer of glaze. The tin glaze of the antique Italian majolica itself was a mixture of the elements of ordinary lead glaze and tin-oxide. This was liquefied with water and (most likely) a little gum arabic, into which the clay objects were dipped. Also around that time the colors of Italian majolica changed. By the early sixteenth century, a full range of colors was available: blues, greens, yellows, oranges, white, black, and brown, and several tones such as ruby red, pink and reddish brown. Several Italian majolica workshops in Deruta of Maestro Giorgio and his descendants in Gubbio specialized in those special color tones.
The Italian majolica production was led by the city of Florence. The technique of making Majolica originally came from Islamic Spain. How it was introduced to Italy is not clear, but at the turn of the 16th century the making of Italian majolica spread through the whole of Italy. The workshops were normally working commission based making custom-made designs for nobility.
Italian majolica had a last flowering at Urbino in the last third of the sixteenth century. But by the end of the century, production had declined due to economic constraints, although the so-called bianchi di Faenza, lightly decorated white wares made in Faenza, continued the tradition of new designs and fine workmanship.
I have removed this from the bottom of the page:
"The best in italian majolica find it at Salomon Stodel http://www.salomonstodel.com/italian_majolica.shtml"
Some good info up above, but I suspect that this anonomous user is attempting to advertise here. I am under the impression that advertising on Wikipedia is not allowed, so whoever wrote this, thanks for your entry, but please take care not to put an ad on the page. Cranialsodomy 01:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] what links here
If a distinction is currently made between majolica and maiolica, the "What links here" feature needs serious disentangling. --Wetman 13:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nomenclature
The article defines majolica as tin-glazed earthenware in which colours are painted on the surface of the glaze (not "slip") before firing. As noted, the term is also used for 19th century decorative pottery with clear glazes. The article then discusses 19th century majolica at some length and is illustrated with such a piece! This makes it horribly confusing.
Too much space is given to nomenclature. I suggest the standard usage, is now "tin-glazed pottery" (as in the standard work on the subject Tin-Glazed Pottery by Alan Caiger Smith). It is still often called "miaolica" (as in The New Maiolica by Mattias Osterman). "Majolica" with a j refers to 19th century pottery with clear coloured glazes and is used for tin-glazed pottery only by the ill-informed. This article should be revised accordingly: there should be one about "tin-glazed pottery" (which I can contribute) and another about "majolica" = the clear-glazed C19th pieces (about which I know nothing).
It is not true to say (as above) that "Italian majolica had a last flowering at Urbino in the last third of the sixteenth century." Tin-glazed pottery has been in continuous production in Tuscany for five hundred years and there are still many workshops in the region. Marshall46 12:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry Marshall46 but you are being a little discourteous here are many well informed and knowledgeable people who use the name MajolicaTheriac 16:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
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- This is what the V&A say:
| “ | In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Italian Renaissance maiolica became increasingly popular among collectors and museums in Britain. At first it was referred to, romantically, as Raffaelle ware or Urbino ware, but soon also with the anglicised term 'majolica'.
In the mid 19th century, the term 'majolica ware' was also used by the Minton factory for their newly introduced, painted tin-glazed earthenwares. But at the Great Exhibition of 1851 Minton launched colourful lead-glazed earthenwares in neo-Renaissance or naturalistic forms called 'Palissy-ware'. Gradually the title 'Palissy' was dropped and by the 1880s the name 'majolica' was instead commonly used to describe this popular colourful ware. In the early 1870s, the curators of the South Kensington Museum returned to the original Italian 'maiolica' with an 'i' to describe all Italian tin-glazed earthenware, doubtless to stress the Italian pronunciation and to avoid confusion with contemporary majolica. |
” |
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- I am working on a series of edits that will link all the articles that refer to tin-glazed pottery and will incorporate the V&A note at some point. - Marshall46 04:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Re-write
I have created a new article, Victorian majolica, which gives a fuller account of that style of pottery, and redirected to that page and to Maiolica for majolica in the sense of Italian tin-glazed pottery. No judgement is made on the correctness or otherwise of any usage; this edit simply aims to remove any confusion that may occur from the use of majolica to mean two different types of pottery. Marshall46 06:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
