HISPANO-MORESQUE NON-LUSTRED POTTERY

The statements of Saint Isidore, confirmed by one or two discoveries in southern Spain, prove that the pottery in use among the Visigoths was principally Roman. Probably in this, as in so many of her arts, the Moorish conquest brought about a radical and rapid change. Remains of pottery dating from this period are extremely rare. The provincial museum of Granada contains some bowls and plates, all more or less imperfect, which are ascribed by experts to about the year 1000. These objects, which were dug up in 1878 on the slopes of the Sierra Elvira, a few miles from Granada, are coloured black and green upon a white or whitish ground. The most important is a dish which measures fourteen inches in diameter, and is decorated with a falcon on a horse's back (Plate [xlviii].).[63] All of this pottery shows the double influence of Byzantium and the East. Among the designs upon the other pieces are hares and stags surrounded by a bordering of primitive arabesques. Riaño remarks that “it is almost impossible to assert whether this pottery was made in or imported into Spain.” Nevertheless, Persians are stated to have settled in this region early in the days of Muslim rule, while these dilapidated specimens of ancient ware are greatly similar in colouring and substance to the common dishes and barreños which are still produced throughout the province of Granada.

Moorish potteries producing lustred or non-lustred ware existed from an early date at Málaga, Valencia, Toledo, Calatayud, Murviedro, Murcia, and Barcelona. Another centre of this craft was probably Granada; for though she is not mentioned in this sense by any of the Moorish authors, the late Señor Contreras discovered here the vestiges of two ancient potteries, while one of the old entrances was known as Bab Alfajjarin, or “the potters' gate.”

XLVIII
DISH
(About A.D. 1000. Museum of Granada)

The Ordinances of Granada contain provisions which were evidently copied from the Spanish Moors, relating to the almadraveros or tilemakers, the tinajeros or makers of tinajas, and the olleros or potters generally. The Ordinances which concern the tilemakers are dated between 1528 and 1540. The restrictions imposed upon these craftsmen were irksome, foolish, and unnecessary. All bricks and tiles were to be stamped in three places with the city mark, and were only permitted to be made between the first of April and the thirty-first of October in each year, “since what is made at other seasons is not good or perfect, owing to the rain, and cold, and frost.”

Another Ordinance, illustrating the lawlessness prevailing at Granada in the times succeeding the reconquest, complains that “many persons, including labourers and hodmen, go forth into the roads and streets, and seize the tiles and bricks by violence from those who are conveying them, and bear them to their houses, or to the work which they are paid to do.”

A picturesque, though cheap and unluxurious, vessel of a thoroughly eastern character, and which was very largely manufactured by the Spanish Moors, is the terra-cotta tinaja or gigantic jar for storing wine, or olive oil, or grain (Plate [xlix].). The use of these receptacles extended through the whole Peninsula, and has continued undiminished to this day. The principal centres of tinaja-making were Toledo, Seville, and Granada. The Ordinances of the latter town embody Moorish rules relating to this branch of pottery. These laws, revived in 1526, provide that all tinajas must contain two kinds of earth, one red, the other white, thoroughly compounded in a trough of water. Before the potter removes the clay from the trough, he must call the city supervisor or veedor to look into the quality and mixing of the mass. The vessel as it leaves the oven must be white; otherwise, even although it have no flaw, the inspector is to break it. The potter is forbidden to coat his tinajas with a glaze composed of eggs, blood, chalk, and other strange ingredients; nor may he fire the glaze with torches, “because the smell of the smoke clings to the tinaja, and the wine or stum deposited therein grows redolent of it, and it stays within the jar perpetually.”

XLIX
HISPANO-MORESQUE TINAJA

Owing doubtless to their plain, domestic purpose and their trifling market cost, early tinajas are not often met with. A fine example in excellent preservation is at South Kensington, and is described by Riaño as “a wine jar, amphora-shaped, and ornamented with an incised pattern of vine leaves, and stamped diaper of a Gothic character.” Several good tinajas have been discovered of late years at Seville. Gestoso mentions six, five of which are glazed. The first of these was found in 1893, and has a bright green glaze upon a ground of reddish earth. Both handles and nearly all the neck are wanting. The decoration consists of various bands or fajas round the body of the jar, a series of archways, another of leaves, and a central band of stars, three deep, strongly imprinted from a mould. In every ninth arch are stamped symbolic hands, such as we see upon the Gate of Justice of the Alhambra.

The second tinaja is similar to the one just mentioned, except that it has the neck. It was discovered in 1895, and is now in Seville museum.

The third tinaja is also in this museum, and was discovered in 1901. It is in a very poor condition, and Gestoso believes that it was originally covered with a honey-coloured glaze.

The fourth tinaja was found in a drain, in the same year as the preceding one, and is inscribed with words, including Blessing and Felicity, in Cufic characters. Gestoso is unable to decide whether this vessel was made at Seville or elsewhere.

The fifth tinaja is in the collection of Don José Morón, and possesses greater interest than the others, both because it is in excellent condition, and also because the decoration is entirely in the Spanish-Christian style, without a trace of Saracenic ornament. Small Gothic-looking shields surround the body of this vessel, which is stamped with pomegranates, and with the arms and emblems of the Ponce de León and other families. Between each pair of shields is an oval-shaped medallion containing human figures.

The sixth tinaja is unglazed. It was found in June of 1893, and is adorned with repetitions of the words Prosperity and Blessing, as well as with a series of deer and other animals in the act of running; some of them with birds upon their backs. These designs are very uncommon, and Gestoso has seen no other tinaja, proceeding from this region, similarly decorated.

Tinajas are still made in large quantities at Toboso, Lucena, Colmenar de Oreja, and other Spanish towns and villages.

Other large objects of a thoroughly oriental character were earthenware glazed brocales or brims of wells, which, like the tinajas, were largely manufactured at Seville and Toledo. Specimens of these brocales exist in the museums of Toledo and Cordova. Riaño describes one which is at South Kensington. “It was bought at Toledo for three guineas at a shoemaker's shop. It is made of glazed white and green earthenware, with ornamental Cufic characters in high relief all round, which appear to be of the fourteenth century. The inscription, which is repeated, is imperfect, and all that I can decipher are the words ‘the power, the excellence, and the peace.’”

Gestoso describes two brocales and the fragments of a third. All these objects were found at Seville. The two which are intact, or nearly so, are cylindrical, and of a white ware. One of them has a simple leaf decoration, and seems to have been covered with a green glaze. The other, which was discovered in 1894, is surrounded by a triple band of inscription in African characters which are illegible.

Gestoso also describes some interesting baptismal fonts, a class of object which he pronounces to have been the most important of all that were produced in the potteries of Triana, by reason both of their large dimensions and of their elaborate ornamentation. He states that three methods were employed to decorate these fonts. The first consisted in attaching to their surface small moulded plates which bore the likeness of a saint, flowers, monograms, or other devices. By the second method the decoration was moulded directly on the font; while the third method consisted in a combination of the other two.

Splendid examples of these Spanish fonts exist in various churches of Andalusia and in private collections. One of the finest is in the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, at Laguna, Tenerife. It is suggested by Gestoso that this pila of Laguna was made at Seville and sent to the Canaries in the year 1479, when orders were issued by Ferdinand and Isabella for the completion of the monasteries in those islands.

Pilas were also manufactured at Toledo, although Gestoso says that the workmanship of those produced at Seville was in every way superior. Nevertheless, he has only found the maker's name upon a single font, which is inscribed with that of Juan Sanchez Vachero, and is now preserved in the church of San Pedro at Carmona. Another remarkable pila is that of the hospital of San Lázaro at Seville.

In course of time the Spanish Church forbade the use of pilas made of glazed earthenware, and ordered their substitution by fonts of stone or marble. One of these dispositions, included among the Constituciones Sinodales of the bishopric of Málaga, and dated 1671, is quoted by Gestoso. It enacts that the pila be of stone and not of earthenware, and that if any of this latter class remain, they are to be “consumed” (i.e. destroyed) within two months.

Returning to the Ordinances of Granada, those which concern the potters or olleros generally are dated 1530, and inform us of the price of glazed and unglazed articles in common use, such as ollas or pots (with and without glaze), cazuelas or earthen vessels for cooking meat, plates of many colours and dimensions, jarros (jugs), alcuzas (vials), cantaros castellanos (Castilian water-pitchers), cantaros moriscos (Moorish water-pitchers [64]), morteros (mortars), lebrillos (earthen tubs), candiles (lamps with a green, white or yellow glaze), orzas (gally pots), botijas (narrow-necked jars), and salseras (saucers).

The shape and colouring of many of these common articles have been continued till to-day, especially in Andalusia. I reproduce a photograph of some (Plate [l].), in which the influence of the East is unmistakable. The smaller of the two unglazed jars is used for carrying and cooling water, and is made at Loja. The other, which is often used for storing honey, is from Guadalajara. The spherical vessel is a kind of bottle for aguardiente. It is glazed a brightish green, and is made in various parts of Andalusia, as are the gourd-shaped calabazas, which have a yellow glaze. The smallest vessel, or that which has a funnel-shaped and bulging mouth, is coated with a coarse metallic glaze coloured in white and blue, and proceeds from Granada.

L
COARSE SPANISH POTTERY
(Modern)

So is the influence of the Spanish Moors, linking the present intimately to the past, and handed down by early craftsmen to the moderns, and from Mussulmans to Christian Spaniards, maintained and kept alive, not only by the city ordinances I have quoted, but also by the more occult yet no less permanent and cogent force of local and unchronicled tradition. In the historic quarter of Granada which is called the Albaycin, survive a few alfarerías to this hour (Plate [lxix].). Here, on the potter's wheel or ranged about his yard, may yet be seen the red Granada earth that is believed to have inspired the vase of the Alhambra, applied to-day to common crockery that notwithstanding has a subtle, unfamiliar charm. And towards the time of sundown, when the master turns indoors to supper and his workmen have gone home, when the last of the red light is colouring the ancient city wall until it too looks like a mammoth monument of the potter's art of old Granada, it is a strange experience to wander through these desolate yards, among the files of ruddy Granadino ware kindling with vivid memories of the vanished Mussulmans of Spain, and bringing back to us that spirited old poet of the East who also sang of pottery:—

“Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried—
‘Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?’

Then said another—‘Surely not in vain
My substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again.’”