Bowl decorated with two women

The dish, produced in Manises (Spain) right at the beginning of the fifteenth century, is in the form of a bowl. The decorations, which are in the Mudejar style, were inspired by Arab and European ceramics. In the bottom of the dish, two women seen from the side and wrapped up in gandouras, are looking at each other from either side of a flowering tree. The band bearing the word alafia[1] that runs across their dress, the vegetal decorations, and the hatching and leaves are reminiscent of Islamic art. This is also the case in the decorations around the top and the raised rim: pseudo-epigraphic arabesque bands, which are reddish brown and interlaced with midnight blue. Once again, cobalt blue has been used for the main decorative elements and gold lustre for the secondary motifs on the bowl's lavishly decorated exterior.

The originality of this decoration, which combines elements traditionally used in different works, has often been remarked upon. The theme of two women facing each other from the side is frequently found in objects of art produced in Paterna and Manises at the start of the fifteenth century. A similar dish, publicized by Gonzalès Marti in 1944[2], has the same composition but there's more fluidity in the style. The origin of this representation can be found in Egyptian ceramics from the twelfth century. A Fatimid dish shows two shrouded figures, sitting either side of a protective hand: ‘the hand of Allah’, whose powerful stylization was a precursor of the tree of Manises (Detroit Institute of Art). Through this link with the Near East, Christian Spain revived the ancient tradition of Anatolian iconography, particularly with the use of vegetal decorations, which were traditionally used in Mazdaean Iran.

However, the technique used to make this dish became more popular than the decorative elements. Between 1380 and 1430, the production and exportation of ceramics decorated with metallic lustre from Manises and Valencia reached their height. Valencia was at the time the busiest port in the Iberian Peninsula, following the decline of Granada. But this success was also due to the commercial skill of the Boils, a local aristocratic family[3]. Pierre Boil, an Aragonese diplomat who worked for the Nasrids in Granada, obtained the right to house several Muslim craftsmen and their families on his estate. Potters known as sarraceni, who came from Murcia or other regions, settled in Manises in around 1320, and were followed thirty years later by potters from Malaga. In 1372, Philippe Boil, Pierre's grandson, took control of the entire production of ceramics in Manises. There followed a growth in commercial demand, especially for ceramics decorated with metallic lustre. According to the chronicles of the time, ‘everyone—from popes to cardinals and princes—admired the ceramics from Valencia’.

Such success was bound to meet with some competition. In Aragon and Catalonia, at the end of the Middle Ages, Valencian ceramics exercised tremendous influence[4]. In France, in 1384, Jean, duc de Berry summoned three ‘Moors from Manises’ to produce ceramics decorated with metallic lustre for his homes in Bourges and Poitiers. The work of one of these potters, Jean de Valencia, known as ‘the Saracen’, is recounted in the Duc de Berry's accounts books. Mention is made of the need to smoke out the ovens ‘during the gilding process, with the help of bundles of sticks’. Potters from Valencia also showed potters from Avignon how to use tin for white backgrounds and manganese morati, i.e. as the Moors used it. They probably influenced the ceramics decorated with metallic lustre produced in Italy in around 1500[5].

[2] Ettinghausen, R., 1954.

[3] In 1238, James I of Aragon, who conquered the region, gave the land to don Artal de Luna, an Aragonese aristocrat. His grandson sold the rights to Pierre Boil, at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

[4] In Aragon, the Calatayud, Muel, and Teruel workshops were strongly influenced by the Manises models, up until the start of the sixteenth century. They then started using compositions that were used in goldwork.  Catalonia, Barcelona, Reus, and Valls produced ceramics decorated in deep red metallic lustre, which had Italian majolica influences (from Gubbio and Deruta) in their decorations.

[5] In Italy, it wasn't until 1500 that the technique was fully mastered. The small workshop in Deruta (Umbria), which operated under the protection of Cardinal Borgia from Valencia, seems to have produced the first examples. Soon afterwards, Italian potters began using three-dimensional figurative compositions, similar to sculpture, and realist painting effects. Metallic lustre added little to these compositions.