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249 DOI: 10.5876/9781607322764:c12 12 Technological Spaces and Transfers Such choice loza and good glazed ware is made that Talavera ware is not missed, because a few years ago they began to make counterfeit Chinese ceramics that were very similar, particularly that made in Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico and in this city of Lima, which is very good and with fine glaze and colors. —Fr. Bernabé Cobo (1890 [1653]: 243)1 Spanish majolica has a centuries-long multicultural history that spans all of the Old World and combines the refined technological know-how of glass working and metalworking with the ancient craft of making earthenware pottery.2 Majolica’s foundations lie in glass making in the Near East where, by the fourth century AD, Persian glass makers had learned that tin oxide (SnO2 ) was an opacifier: tiny (200–900 nanometers) crystals of the tin ore-mineral cassiterite in the glaze scatter light and thus create an opaque appearance (Molera, Vendrell-Saz, and Pérez-Arantegui 2001: 334; Vendrell,Molera,andTite 2000).3 By the ninth century, tin, in amounts of 5–8 percent or more, had gradually replaced other traditional agents (quartz, feldspar, calcium , air bubbles) as the sole opacifier of Near Eastern lead-based glazes (Mason and Tite 1997).4 In decoration, potters in the Near East were influenced by imported Chinese T’ang-dynasty ceramics of the eighth through tenth centuries, which included tri-color decoration featuring copper green, ironbased brown, and yellow pigments. Interestingly, this is also the color scheme of the Neo-Assyrian glazed bricks, although some of the colorants differed: blackbrown was produced from manganese, opaque white TECHNOLOGICAL SPACES AND TRANSFERS 250 from a calcium-antimonate pigment, green from copper, and yellow from leadantimonate (Freestone 1991). Potters also might have been influenced by the rare,early,blue-on-white decoration on Chinese pottery using cobalt imported from Persia. The technology of covering pottery surfaces with an opaque, light-colored tin enamel spread throughout the Mediterranean, perhaps earliest in Egypt, and was brought to the Iberian Peninsula in the tenth century, shortly after lead glazing was introduced (Lister and Lister 1987: 39–40). Chinese-inspired decoration on these wares gave rise in Andalucía to the long-lived medieval tradition of decorating tin-enameled pottery with copper (CuO) green and purplish-black/brown from manganese (MnO2 ) instead of iron (see ibid. for a detailed history of Andalucían ceramics). Known as verde y morado, this IberoIslamic style featured motifs painted on a white or cream-colored ground that sometimes had a light bluish or greenish tint,depending on chemical impurities in the lead or tin oxides. In the twelfth century the technique of producing luster ware (also known as reflejo metálico; dorado) was introduced to southeastern Spain, probably from Fatimid Egypt. This ware, especially famed in Málaga (Granada) and later Manises (Valencia), was fired twice (bisque and glost), then overglaze painted with gold or pinkish-gold decoration having a metallic luster,fired a third time at low temperature in a reducing atmosphere, and cooled under reduction (Canby 1997: 112; Gavin 2003: 5; Rhodes and Hopper 2000: 308–9; Thornton 1997: 119). These colors and luster are created by pigments made with metal salts (oxides): silver nitrate, copper sulfate or carbonate, or gold chloride.The ingredients and processes of luster-paint manufacture in Muel (Aragón) are described in 1585 and 1785 (Barber 1915a: 17–21). In 1585 the pigment was a mixture of powdered silver, “vermilion” (or cinnabar, which is mercury-based and toxic), red ochre, and “a little wire” (?), combined with strong vinegar and applied to the fired glazed ware with a feather. In 1785, 3 ounces of copper, a 1-peseta silver coin, and 3 ounces sulfur were combined, heated, and pounded into a powder. Then 12 ounces of red ochre and 3 pounds of earth or “scoriae”(metal slag?) were added; and the mix was powdered, mixed with water, and heated in a kiln for six hours. Finally, this mixture was powdered yet again, mixed with a quart of vinegar, and applied to the glazed vessels, which were fired using only dried rosemary as fuel. In addition to being technically complex, labor- and fuel-intensive, and thus expensive, luster wares had an extremely high failure rate; one observer estimated only 6 in 100 pieces were successful (Thornton 1997: 119). In Manises, luster ware production appears to have been controlled by the Buyl family, prominent in Valencia since...

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