Valencian Tin-Glazed Earthenware and Technological Change: A Mediterranean Industry

Abstract

Tin-glaze technology was introduced early in the Iberian Peninsula and developed further in the Valencian region. Manises lusterware on tin-glazed wares became, from the 14th century onward, a widely exported and socially recognized prestige product, although it declined in later centuries and was replaced by other productions, such as polychrome earthenwares from Alcora or Valencian tilework, that enjoyed a worldwide distribution. The aim of this article is to review the long evolution of this Eastern technology, introduced almost simultaneously with its development in the Middle East, analyzing how the technique and the ceramics produced with it were adapted to changing societies and to the aesthetic keys of each historical moment through to the 18th century. This first occurred because of the admiration it generated in European feudal society when the technique was transferred by the integration of the Muslim population in the expanding kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula, and then by crossing oceans and reaching America.