The rarest and most beautiful examples of this ware are naturally those which belong to the former class, and consist of various kinds of plates and other objects in which elaborate devices such as lions, antelopes, and shields of heraldry, often combined with foliage and inscriptions in Gothic lettering, are coloured in bistre or pale blue,[82] and rendered doubly beautiful by the delicate nacreous lustre.

In nearly every case it is extremely difficult to determine with any certainty the date of manufacture of these objects, as well as the locality. Wallis says he is aware of “no example of Spanish lustre pottery antecedent to those in the class to which the large Palermo jar belongs, and they are not likely to be much earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. Happily the celebrated plaque (Plate [lviii].) formerly belonging to Fortuny, and now in the possession of Excmo Sr. Don G. J. de Osma, furnishes an early date, which, according to its owner, is between May 1408 and November 1417. Those who know the original will remember that it is no less remarkable for the quality of its golden lustre than for the grace and elegance of its fanciful Oriental design.” It is also believed by Señor Osma that this plaque was manufactured in the kingdom of Granada; i.e. either at Granada or Málaga.

LVIII
HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED PLAQUE
(Early 15th Century. Osma Collection)

A specimen of Spanish lustred ware more celebrated even than Fortuny's plaque is the “vase of the Alhambra” (Plate [lix].), which rests to-day in a corner of the Sala de las Dos Hermanas. The history of this mighty jar is interesting. Popular superstition affirms it to have been discovered, filled to the brim with gold, by the Marquis of Mondejar, first of the Christian governors of the fortress of Granada. Exposed for many years to every stress of weather and to every mutilation at the hands of passers-by, it stood, in company with other vases of enormous size, upon a rampart which is now the garden terrace known as the Adarves. Several of the older travellers have described these vessels or alluded to them. Marmol wrote of them as far back as the sixteenth century, while the journal of Bertaut de Rouen contains the following notice;—“Sur la première terrasse par où l'on entre, et d'où l'on a de la peine à regarder en bas sans estre ébloüy, il y a deux fontaines jaillissantes, et tout du long des murs du chasteau, des espaliers d'orangers et de grenadiers, avec de grands vases de terre peinte, aussi belle que la porcelaine, où il n'y avoit pour lors, sinon quelques fleurs en quelques-uns: mais où l'on dit que le Marquis de Mondejar trouva quantité d'or que les Mores avaient caché dans la terre, quand il y fût estably par Ferdinand.” The priest Echeverría, who forged the relics of the ancient Alcazaba of Granada,[83] was careful to repeat this fable in the twenty-sixth chapter of his Paseos por Granada. The first edition of this work was published in 1764, under the assumed name of Joseph Romero Yranzo. There were then two vases and part of a third, all “lacerated, peeled, and maltreated.” The Englishman Swinburne wrote in 1776 that below the Towers of the Bell, “on the south-side, on a slip of terrace, is the governor's garden, a very pleasant walk, full of fine orange and cypress trees and myrtle hedges, but quite abandoned. The view it commands is incomparable. Two large vases enamelled with gold and azure foliages and characters are the only ornaments left: these were taken out of the vaults under the royal apartments.” In the second edition of Echeverría's Paseos, which was republished in 1814, it is added in a footnote that only a single vase remained, “in a room that overlooks the Court of Myrtles.” Lozano, however, in his Antigüedades Arabes, mentions two vases as existing at the same period. Argote de Molina (Nuevos Paseos por Granada, published about 1808) describes, together with the wretchedly executed marble statues in the Sala de las Ninfas, the “two or three great porcelain jars whereof some pieces only now remain,” and reminds us that according to the old tradition these statues looked continually towards the vases, which were full of treasure. Argote, nevertheless, takes Echeverría sharply to task for his absurdities upon this theme; and Washington Irving, a diligent gleaner in Echeverría's somewhat scanty field, makes use of the same material for his well-known story.

LIX
HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED VASE
(Alhambra, Granada)

In the time of Owen Jones the one surviving vase, now standing with a wooden rail before it in a corner of the Hall of the Two Sisters, still occupied the “room that looks upon the Court of Myrtles.” Jones wrote of it in 1842:—“This beautiful vase was discovered, it is said, full of gold in one of the subterranean chambers of the Casa Real. It is at present to be seen in a small chamber of the Court of the Fish-pond, in which are deposited the archives of the palace. It is engraved in the Spanish work by Lozano, Antigüedades Arabes de España, with another of the same size, which was broken a few years ago, and the pieces sold to a passing traveller. The vase is executed in baked clay, with enamelled colours and gold similar to the mosaics.”