PLATEAU, PROBABLY OF VALENCIA. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.
[Medium amplification]
[Largest amplification]

This and similar texts relating to the exportation of Spanish pottery explains the fact of these specimens being so frequently met with in Italy. Pottery of a dark copper-coloured lustre is made at the present time at Manises, and the imitations and forgeries to be met with at the dealers' shops in Madrid are made in that locality.

I have mentioned the different historical texts which allude to this industry, and the technical receipts showing the ingredients employed to give the lustre. It is now no longer possible to doubt that this pottery came originally from the East. This opinion has gained ground of late years; for among the objects discovered by Sir Henry Layard at Nineveh, and in more recent excavations in Ephesus and Asia Minor, fragments of pottery have been found with metallic lustre. This and other important examples of artistic culture undoubtedly arose in Persia. No examples which may be mentioned can give a better or more distinct idea of this than a comparison between the Persian and Hispano-Moresque wares at the South Kensington Museum. The technical proceedings and effect produced by the metallic lustre on a white ground, with touches here and there of blue, are exactly the same in both cases. The principal difference consists in a greater richness and variety of ornamentation which we find in the specimens brought from Persia, especially those covered with a turquoise blue lustre, those of a dark blue and metallic lustre, and those on which gold is applied en froid, of which I know no similar examples in Spain. It is possible they may have existed in the mosques, but no traces remain of mosques built by the Spanish Moors during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. The mosques at Cordova and Toledo which still exist are of an earlier date. If we judge by the mosque of Amru at Cairo, and others of the same early period, tile decorations were not used in their ornamentation, and it appears probable that this industry only became important after the 10th century. The similarity of objects used in Spain and Persia is constantly observed by travellers in that country. Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who was sent there as ambassador from the King of Castille from 1403 to 1406, gives a most interesting description of tile decoration, by which we find they were used in the same manner as in Spain. ("Historia del gran Tamorlan," Seville, 1582, fol.) Another Spanish traveller, Silva de Figueroa, in a MS. belonging to Don Pascual de Gayangos, in describing his embassy to Persia in 1618 mentions the manner in which these tiles were used. I do not quote from many other travellers, for their remarks are hardly so valuable as those of Spaniards, who were accustomed to see these objects in their native country.

After mentioning the historical sources from which I have traced the manufactory of Hispano-Moresque lustred ware in Spain, it is advisable to enumerate the most important examples which have reached us belonging to the 14th century, or to an earlier date.

The fine vase at the Alhambra, Granada. (See woodcut.)

A vase of the same character which exists at the Archæological Museum of Madrid.

A vase of the same kind, which belonged to the painter, Mariano Fortuny, and which was sold at the sale of his art objects in Paris, April 30th, 1875. (Vide "Atelier de Fortuny," Paris, 1875.)

A fragment of another vase, which belonged also to Fortuny, and was sold at the same time.