The Spanish Peninsula was invaded by the Arabs about the year 711 A.D., and they absorbed for several centuries the industries of the country. Ceramic Art attained great importance in their hands during the Middle Ages and Renaissance period, for even while the pottery works established at Talavera, Seville, and other localities, manufactured pottery to a very great extent, which was chiefly imitated from Italian models, the Moorish style still continued, and has never been interrupted in the province of Valencia down to the present day.
The Arabs had as early as the beginning of the 12th century, if not even before, established the industry of metallic-lustred pottery in Spain. It remains to be seen what were the leading characteristics of the pottery of the period of the greatest importance of the Spanish Moors from the 8th to the 11th century.
Cordova, the capital of the independent Caliphs of Damascus, was the centre from which works of art of all kinds of a high order were largely exported. The ruins of the palaces at Medina Az zahra have, it is deeply to be regretted, never been excavated, and Granada is the only locality where some fragments of Moorish pottery may be studied belonging to this time.
Granada was almost unknown in the 8th century; the ancient Roman town of Illiberis, about six miles from the present site of Granada, had alone any importance: it was one of the bishoprics of Andalucia. The Arabs first settled in the remains of the Roman city: in the 10th century they removed to the spot occupied by the present town, and Illiberis was then abandoned. Roman remains are frequently found at Illiberis, as are also vestiges of the Moorish occupation, chiefly consisting of objects in bronze and fragments of pottery. These specimens are decorated with arabesques in green and black on a whitish ground. Some interesting examples may be studied at the small Museo Provincial at Granada, which certainly belong to the 10th or beginning of the 11th century. One of these fragments has unreadable Arabic letters; another is decorated with a stag; the most remarkable is a plate fourteen inches in diameter, in the centre of which is represented a falcon on a horse's back. The form and every detail of the horse, the plaited tail, ending in the form of a trident, all are identical with one on which is mounted a man holding a hawk in his hand, carved on the ivory casket described on page 133 as dated 359 of the hegira (A.D. 969), and probably of Cordovese manufacture. Both these objects possess a very decided Persian character, and undoubtedly belong to the date ascribed; for besides the circumstance of their having been found in ruins of this period, the shape of the horse is conclusive; its character changes soon after, as we find in the miniatures of the MS. of the 13th century at the Bib. Nationale de Paris, containing the "Séances de Hariri." It is almost impossible to assert whether this pottery was made in, or imported into Spain. One argument in favour of its Spanish-Moorish origin is that the glaze and paste are similar to pottery which we know was manufactured at Granada. The common earthenware proceeding from that locality is decorated in much the same manner.
Soon after the fall of the Caliphate, metallic-lustred ware was made in Spain: Edrisi, the most remarkable Arabic geographer of the Middle Ages, in describing Calatayud, says: "Here the gold-coloured pottery is made which is exported to all countries." ("Descrip. de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne," Leyde, 1866.) Edrisi was born in the year 1100. He studied at Cordova, and finished writing his book in 1154. The circumstance of this pottery being mentioned in the 12th century as excellent enough for exportation, certainly makes it appear probable that the fabrique already existed at an earlier date, especially when we bear in mind that Calatayud was conquered in the year 1120 by the Christians, and it is impossible to suppose that they established an Oriental industry there which was foreign to their culture, or to the contemporary Christian art. This text of Edrisi's has hitherto not been properly interpreted. In Jauber's translation (Edrisi, Paris, 1836-40), he interprets the word guidar,
This text of Edrisi's has never yet been quoted by writers on Ceramic Art; but once known it is impossible for a moment to state that the earliest manufacture of Moorish lustred ware was that at Malaga, an opinion which has been supported hitherto on the quotation from Ben Batutah's works, which will be given later on. I regret to have found no other allusion to the lustred ware of Aragon until the 10th century. No mention is made of it in the geographical texts published by Juynboll, Al Makkari, or other Arabic writers. From what we know of Aragon in the 16th century, it was a great centre of this industry, and its productions rivalled those of Valencia and Andalucia.
The next text which alludes to this manufacture is given by Ben Batutah, a celebrated traveller, who, after travelling for twenty years in the East, went from Tangiers to Granada, from 1349 to 1351. Passing by Malaga, he says: "At Malaga, the fine golden pottery is made which is exported to the furthermost countries." ("Voy. d'Ibn Batoutah," Paris, 1853-58, vol. iv. p. 367.) This text has been constantly reproduced and commented upon, since Baron Charles Davillier first drew attention to it in his interesting little brochure on "Faïences Hispano-Moresques."
The next time I find lustred pottery mentioned is in the 15th century. Eximenus, in his "Regiment de la cosa publica," Valencia, 1499, in speaking of the excellent things made in the kingdom of Valencia, says: "The twenty-seventh excellent thing is that some artificial objects are made there which bring great renown to the country, for they are excellent and beautiful, and are now to be found in other localities ... but above all is the beauty of the gold pottery so splendidly painted at Manises, which enamours everyone so much, that the Pope, and the cardinals, and the princes of the world obtain it by special favour, and are astonished that such excellent and noble works can be made of earth."
Lustred pottery had already attained great importance in Aragon early in the 16th century. We find in a deed granted at Calatayud in 1507, that "Muhamed ben Suleyman Attaalab, an inhabitant of the suburb of the Moors at Calatayud, and an artificer of lustred golden earthenware, engaged himself with Abdallah Alfoquey of the same locality, to teach him the said industry, in the space of four years and a half, from the date of the deed." ("Estado social de los mudejares de Castilla, by Fernandez y Gonzalez," Madrid 1866, p. 437.) At Muel, a village in the province of Aragon near Zaragoza, this industry existed to a great extent in 1585. In the travels of Henrique Cock ("Relacion del viage hecho por Felipe II. en 1585," por Henrique Cock, publicado por Morel Fatio y Rodriguez Villa, Madrid, 1876,) we find the following interesting details of the manner in which this pottery was made, p. 30:—