Plate decorated with doe

On the bottom of the plate, the outline of a doe stands out in cobalt blue, in keeping with the tradition of Islamic art. The animal is surrounded by ocelli grouped into corolla, known as flores de puntos, and a semi-circle of small dots. These decorations have been painted in bronze lustre. On the inner border, which is decorated in the same way with dots, are Gothic letters in cobalt blue, divided into six groups of two or three letters—the first part of one of the most important Christian prayers, consisting of the salutation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (the Gospel of Luke, I:28). On the back of the plate, rosettes, grooves, and circles perpetuate Islamic decorative traditions.

The plate originates from the workshops of Manises, near Valencia, in Spain's eastern Mediterranean coastal region. The plate's metallic lustre used a process invented in Iraq in the ninth century, which was gradually introduced into Muslim Spain. Valencia and Manises, which fell to the Christians in 1238, appeared to have mastered this process with the help of potters in Malaga. Owing to the region's natural characteristics and traditions of craftsmanship, the technique developed in a particular way.

The Valencian clay paste that is intended for decoration with metallic lustre contains 20% chalk. The plate was fired three times. The first firing, at a low temperature of around 500°, transformed the paste into a biscuit (bizcochada). The second, at a much higher temperature (950°), was a glaze firing. In this case, the glaze consists of a lead glaze made opaque with tin. It was obtained from a powder (acercol), resulting from the fusion of lead and tin, which was heated and ground twice after adding sand and sea salt. The method for making metallic lustre is quite simple. Copper and sulphur are mixed in equal quantities, to which is added a small quantity of silver (4% of the mixture), in order to obtain metallic and sulphur oxides. Red ochre (almazarrón) is then added in a quantity that is twice that of the mixture obtained, and the entire mixture is then diluted with vinegar. Objects covered in this mixture are fired slowly at a low temperature (between 500° and 600°) in a reducing atmosphere, enabling the oxides to penetrate the glaze and turn back into metal particles.

In the fifteenth century, Valencian decorations, revitalized by international Gothic art, combined Christian and Arab traditions. The doe, which is a traditional Muslim symbol, was perhaps reinterpreted in light of the Psalms. The words of Ave Maria (Hail Mary) were split into groups for aesthetic reasons. They give the plate a religious, even sibylline, character. Ceramics that have a mixture of foreign lettering and Muslim motifs appear to originate from an ancient East that goes back to Christ and the apostles, and were highly prized. This can be seen in a fifteenth-century Spanish painting of ‘The Last Supper’, in which a plate, decorated in a similar fashion, is represented in the centre of the table[1].

At the end of the Middle Ages, Valencian metallic lustre-painted ceramics, which were widely copied in Europe, were also exported to Tunisia and Egypt. The plate decorated with the doe was even copied (in around 1950) by Tunisian potters from Nābul, who replaced the blue with black.