majolica

/meuh jol"i keuh, meuh yol"-/, n.

1. Italian earthenware covered with an opaque glaze of tin oxide and usually highly decorated.

2. any earthenware having an opaque glaze of tin oxide.

Also, maiolica.

[1545-55; ear-lier maiolica < It < ML, var. of LL Majorica MAJORCA, where it was made]

* * *

Italian maiolica

Tin-glazed earthenware introduced from Moorish Spain by way of the island of Majorca and produced in Italy from the 14th century.

Majolica is usually restricted to five colours: cobalt blue, antimony yellow, iron red, copper green, and manganese purple; the purple and blue were used, at various periods, mainly for outline. White tin enamel was used also, for highlights or alone on the white tin glaze. The most common shape of the pottery was a display dish, decorated in the istoriato style, a 16th-century Italian narrative style that uses the pottery body solely as support for a purely pictorial effect. See also delftware; Faenza majolica; faience; Urbino majolica.

* * *

▪ pottery

also spelled  Maiolica,  

      tin-glazed earthenware produced from the 15th century at such Italian (Italy) centres as Faenza, Deruta, Urbino, Orvieto, Gubbio, Florence, and Savona. Tin-glazed earthenware—also made in other countries, where it is called faience, or delft—was introduced into Italy from Moorish Spain by way of the island of Majorca, or Maiolica, whence it derived the name by which it was known in Italy.

      The majolica painter's palette was usually restricted to five colours: cobalt blue, antimony yellow, iron red, copper green, and manganese purple; the purple and blue were used, at various periods, mainly for outline. A white tin enamel was used also for highlights or alone on the white tin glaze in what was called bianco sopra bianco, “white on white.”

      The shapes most often employed were the albarello, or drug jar, of Middle East origin; a type of ewer evidently derived from the Greek oinochoe; and, above all, the piatta da pompa, or show dish, in the istoriato, (istoriato style) an Italian narrative style from the early 16th century that uses the pottery body solely as support for a purely pictorial effect. Although violating aesthetic rules in their subordination of shape to decoration, such wares remain works of great skill, as well as beauty.

* * *