Western Mediterranean The
Moors brought the technique of
tin-glazed earthenware to
Al-Andalus, where the art of
lustreware with metallic glazes was perfected. From at least the 14th century,
Málaga in Andalusia and later
Valencia exported these "
Hispano-Moresque wares", either directly or via the
Balearic Islands to Italy and the rest of Europe. Later these industries continued under Christian lords. "
Majolica" and "
maiolica" are garbled versions of "Maiorica", the island of
Mallorca, which was a transshipping point for refined tin-glazed earthenwares shipped to
Italy from the
kingdom of Aragon at the close of the
Middle Ages. This type of pottery owed much to its Moorish inheritance. In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, now called
maiolica, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After about 1600, these lost their appeal to elite customers, and the quality of painting declined, with geometric designs and simple shapes replacing the complicated and sophisticated scenes of the best period. Production continues to the present day in many centres, and the wares are again called "faience" in English (though usually still
maiolica in Italian). At some point "faience" as a term for pottery from
Faenza in northern Italy was a general term used in French, and then reached English.
French and northern European faïence tureen, Marseille, The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the Dutch.
Delftware is a kind of faience, made at potteries round Delft in the
Netherlands, characteristically decorated in blue on white. It began in the early sixteenth century on a relatively small scale, imitating Italian maiolica, but from around 1580 it began to imitate the highly sought-after
blue and white Chinese export porcelain that was beginning to reach Europe, soon followed by
Japanese export porcelain. From the later half of the century the Dutch were manufacturing and exporting very large quantities, some in its own recognisably Dutch style, as well as copying East Asian porcelain. In France, the first well-known painter of faïence was
Masseot Abaquesne, established in Rouen in the 1530s.
Nevers faience and
Rouen faience were the leading French centres of faience manufacturing in the 17th century, both able to supply wares to the standards required by the court and nobility. Nevers continued the Italian
istoriato maiolica style, painted with figurative subjects, until around 1650. Many others centres developed from the early 18th century, led in 1690 by
Quimper in Brittany , followed by
Moustiers,
Marseille,
Strasbourg and
Lunéville and many smaller centres. The cluster of factories in the south were generally the most innovative, while Strasbourg and other centres near the Rhine were much influenced by German porcelain. The products of faience manufactories are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the clay body, the character and palette of the
glaze, and the style of decoration,
faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip.
Faïence parlante (especially from Nevers) bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners.
Apothecary wares, including
albarelli, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the
faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the
French Revolution. "
English delftware" produced in
Lambeth, London, and at other centres, from the late sixteenth century, provided apothecaries with jars for wet and dry drugs, among a wide range of wares. Large painted dishes were produced for weddings and other special occasions, with crude decoration that later appealed to collectors of English
folk art. Many of the early potters in London were Flemish. By about 1600, blue-and-white wares were being produced, labelling the contents within decorative borders. The production was slowly superseded in the first half of the eighteenth century with the introduction of cheap
creamware. Dutch potters in northern (and Protestant) Germany established German centres of faience: the first manufactories in Germany were opened at
Hanau (1661) and Heusenstamm (1662), soon moved to nearby
Frankfurt. In Switzerland,
Zunfthaus zur Meisen near
Fraumünster church houses the porcelain and faience collection of the
Swiss National Museum in
Zürich. By the mid-18th centuries many French factories produced (as well as simpler wares) pieces that followed the
Rococo styles of the French porcelain factories and often hired and trained painters with the skill to produce work of a quality that sometimes approached them. The products of French faience manufactories, rarely marked, are identified by the usual methods of ceramic connoisseurship: the character of the
body, the character and palette of the
glaze, and the style of decoration,
faïence blanche being left in its undecorated fired white slip.
Faïence parlante bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners. Wares for
apothecaries, including
albarello, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, leading to the
Faïence patriotique that was a specialty of the years of the
French Revolution. was imitating decors of its Dutch and French rivals. In the course of the later 18th century, cheaper
porcelain, and the refined earthenwares first developed in
Staffordshire pottery such as
creamware took over the market for refined faience. The French industry was given a nearly fatal blow by a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1786, much lobbied for by
Josiah Wedgwood, which set the import duty on English
earthenware at a nominal level. In the early 19th century, fine
stoneware—fired so hot that the unglazed body
vitrifies—closed the last of the traditional makers'
ateliers even for
beer steins. At the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares, and many local varieties have continued to be made in versions of the old styles as a form of
folk art, and today for tourists.
Revival In the 19th century two
glazing techniques revived by
Minton were: 1.
Tin-glazed pottery in the style of Renaissance Italian
maiolica and, 2. The pottery of coloured glazes decoration over unglazed earthenware molded in low relief. At the
Great Exhibition of 1851 and at the
International Exhibition of 1862 both were exhibited. Both are known today as
Victorian majolica. The coloured glazes majolica wares were later also made by
Wedgwood and numerous smaller
Staffordshire potteries round
Burslem and
Stoke-on-Trent. At the end of the nineteenth century,
William de Morgan re-discovered the technique of lustered faience "to an extraordinarily high standard".
Ancient frit wares called "faience" figure in
Egyptian faience The term
faience broadly encompassed finely glazed ceramic beads, figures and other small objects found in
Egypt as early as 4000 BC, as well as in the
Ancient Near East, the
Indus Valley Civilisation and Europe. However, this material is not pottery at all, containing no clay, but a vitreous
frit, either self-glazing or glazed. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art displays a piece known as "
William the Faience Hippopotamus" from
Meir, Egypt, dated to the
Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, –1885 BC. Different to those of ancient Egypt in theme and composition, artefacts of the
Nubian Kingdom of
Kerma are characterized by extensive amounts of blue faience, which was developed by the natives of Kerma independently of Egyptian techniques. Examples of ancient faience are also found in
Minoan Crete, which was likely influenced by Egyptian culture. Faience material, for instance, has been recovered from the
Knossos archaeological site. == Types ==