Sgraffiato

In Mediterranean

The sgraffito technique

Sgraffito is a decorative technique used in ceramics. The Italian word sgraffito means to scratch or to engrave but all engraved ceramics are not sgraffito[1]. We will use this term solely for clay paste-based ceramics covered with a coat of slip and a lead glaze. The decoration is then incised into the slip with a fine-point instrument or a gouge (which allows for wider incisions). The incisions allow different colours –from brick red to pink to beige to brown – to show through. Most of the time extra colour is then applied on the vessel in the guise of copper oxide (green), iron oxide (yellow) or manganese oxide (brown), probably before it is glazed[2]. Before the vessel is fired, it is entirely covered in a coat of glaze whose composition is similar to that of glass and is reminiscent of a coat of translucent or opaque varnish. Sgraffito was mostly used on open vessels, bowls, cups or dishes, for example, since this made it easier to fully appreciate the decoration.

Clay ceramics with engraved slip date back to the ninth and tenth centuries, and the Abbasid period in Samarra and Susa, in Mesopotamia[3]. In the eleventh century, the technique then spread to the Iranian provinces[4] of the Abbasid empire and then in the twelfth century to the whole of the Middle East: in Egypt, Anatolia and Syria, as well as in Byzantium and southern Russia, unless Byzantium had its own traditions. On the other hand, although commercial and cultural exchanges spread to the whole of the Mediterranean basin, it seems there is no sgraffito in Spain, the Maghreb or Sicily. It seems that sgraffito was only used in the eastern Mediterranean.

In Egypt, the Fatimids produced incised ceramics covered in glaze that was often opaque and sometimes monochrome green or turquoise that soon distinguished itself from sgraffito. The paste used – initially pink clay – rapidly became grey, then from the twelfth century white because of a greater concentration of silica. This allowed the potter to put the glaze directly on the clay-silica base then on the silica base.

Shortly thereafter, sgraffito ware with the same characteristics was clearly present in the twelfth and thirteenth century in the eastern Mediterranean in Syria, Cyprus and the Byzantine Empire.

At the time, Syria was at the heart of a large network of exchanges between the Christian West, Byzantium and the Muslim world, and under the Ayyubids the country was partly occupied by the Crusaders, especially the city of Antioch (1098–1298) and Jerusalem (1099–1187)^[5], produced sgraffito where these influences meet.

This group of ceramics, known as “Al-Mina”[6] ware – numerous pieces were discovered in Al-Mina, one of the two ports of Antioch – features neat incisions surrounding the colours – brown, ochre and green – in small, well-defined touches similar to sgraffito ware produced in Aghkand, Iran, during the same period. The designs were either Christian or Muslim in origin and they occupied the central part of the ceramic pieces but did not cover the entire space. The technique and style are so similar that it is difficult to determine precisely whether they came out of Crusader or Muslim workshops.

Cyprus, in turn Byzantine[7] and Muslim, was in the hands of the Frankish dynasty of Lusignan from 1192 to 1489. At the time, the island was a trading centre and an essential meeting point in the Mediterranean. Many examples of sgraffito were found on the island. Among these were pieces that look very similar to Al-Mina ware, perhaps as a direct consequence of the arrival of Syrian potters fleeing the arrival of Baybars in 1268. For example, the thirteenth-century betrothal cup discovered in Al-Mina is decorated with the same design as the Cyprus betrothal chalice (thirteenth century)[8]. It is worth mentioning that a similar pattern was found on an earlier vessel, an Iranian piece from the tenth century[9].

Cypriot production is also similar to Constantinople ceramics. On the island, scientists have identified several types of sgraffito, some similar to Byzantine productions and some believed to be local. On the sites of Lapithos, Saranda Kolones and Paphos, sgraffito pieces were found. The first ones were monochrome – yellow, colourless or olive green – and from the thirteenth or fourteenth century they featured green and brown together. These pieces are adorned with abstract patterns (wave rule) or figurative designs, with female figures wearing chevron-patterned dresses. Some of the vessels have a characteristic carinated shape and a high pedestal.

The Byzantine Empire produced its own sgraffito in Chersonese, Trebizond, Corinth, Sparta and Constantinople. From the point of view of technique, Byzantine and Muslim pieces used the same principles. It is difficult for us today to tell whether there was a Muslim influence and even trickier to determine the origins of this influence. Byzantium, via Cyprus, was in contact with Syria and Egypt, but it also had contacts with Iran whose territories bordered the empire. As for designs, there is an unmistakable Muslim influence on some ceramics: they are decorated with pseudo-Kufic inscriptions or with figures seated on their heels.

Byzantine pieces are either monochrome[10] or polychrome sgraffito. The change in technique happened in the early thirteenth century. The monochrome sgraffito pieces include fine^[11], Zeuxippus^[12], Aegean^[13] and plain sgraffito^[14]. Polychrome sgraffito became more common from the fourteenth century. The technique used green and brown or yellow and green glazes.

Unlike other types of ceramic, the production of sgraffito ware spread over the entire Byzantine Empire.

The Seljuk dynasty of R?m (1071–1302), situated between the Byzantine Empire, part of whose territories it had absorbed, and Syria, produced its own sgraffito ware, especially during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some of these ceramics show the links that existed between Ayyubid Syria and Anatolia: for example, bowls with red stripes on the outside similar to the ones found in Qal’at Ja’bar, Syria, and Korukutepe. Several red clay bowls were found during a dig in Samsat. They are decorated on the outside with vertical stripes bearing repetitive jagged designs placed close together. These designs are engraved in slip then covered in a pistachio green glaze that coats the inside as well as the outside. In the Eregli Museum in Konya, there is a fragment of a cup adorned with the design of a falconer[15] and in Çinili Kösk there are dishes with designs of people wearing stripy clothes which bear similarities to enamel glassware from North Syria.

The sgraffito technique continued to be in widespread use in Egypt and in Syria under the Mamluk dynasty. This is visible on pieces from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries. The clay paste is very dark red and several layers of slip can be used. The lead glaze is monochromatic and can be yellow, green, brown and black, and it is possible to create multilayered designs. They are mainly tapered footed bowls, chalices, basins and goblets. The sgraffito ware of the time is characterised by deeper, more visible incisions. A few Mamluk sgraffito pieces are signed, some by a craftsman named Sharaf and others by someone called “the Egyptian Master”.

Inscriptions in thuluth script with very high ascenders are very common on fourteenth-century Mamluk ceramics[16]. Dignitaries’ coats of arms are placed here and there on the bands adorned with epigraphy that runs along the sides. There are also animal friezes but Mamluk ceramics are characterised by a dearth of plant and geometric designs and, unlike earlier productions, an absence of human figures.

The sgraffito technique continued to spread around the Mediterranean. After the thirteenth century is was adopted in Italian workshops in Bologna, Padua, Faenza and Ferrara. These pieces present a local style derived from the Al-Mina pieces. They are covered with green or ochre glaze and are known as “mezza maiolica” or “graffita arcaica”[17]. From Italy the sgraffito technique spread to France, especially to the region of Avignon in Provence and further north to the Beauvais region.

From the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, the frontiers between the Muslim and the Christian worlds were permeable and craftsmen from both cultures influenced each other constantly.

C. P.