majolica
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /məˈd͡ʒɒlɪkə/
ipa: /maɪˈɒlɪkə/
Forms: form: majolicas
form: maiolica
Etymology: From Italian maiolica, named after the Island of Mallorca (formerly known as Maiolica), which was once a commerce center for work produced in Valencia, Spain. Doublet of Mallorca and Majorca.
Senses: examples: text: The Italian Vase [top, left, p.8] is Majolica, […] The Ewer [bottom, middle, p.8] is a Palissy vase.
ref: 1862, Editorial Staff, Art Journal Catalogue, Exhibited Class XXXV, no.6873, D78., page #:8:
text: 1877, Leon Arnoux, Director, Minton & Co., British Manufacturing Industries POTTERY, page #:42 https://archive.org/stream/britishmanufact08goog#page/n56/mode/2up/search/palissy
Majolica was produced for the first time by Messrs. Minton, in 1850, and they have been for many years the only producers of this article. The name of majolica is now applied indiscriminately to all fancy articles of coloured pottery. When, however, it is decorated by means of coloured glazes, if these are transparent, it ought to be called Palissy ware […]
text: [Minton] employed no less than 1500. The various branches he developed were earthenware and ordinary soft porcelain, hard porcelain, parian, coloured and enamelled tiles, mosaics, Della Robbia ware, majolica, and Palissy ware.
ref: 1904, Arthur Hayden, Chats on English China, New York, page #:184:
text: […] the coloured glaze decorated wares which we now call majolica, but which Minton referred to as Palissy wares.
ref: 1999, Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, Dictionary of Minton, ACC Art Books (2nd Revised edition 1 Jan. 1999), page #:124
text: Summary: Analysis confirms that Palissy used coloured lead glazes, lead silicates with added metal oxides of copper [for green], cobalt [for blue], manganese [for brown and black] or iron [for yellow ochre] with a small addition of tin [for opacity] to some of the glazes." in a sombre earth-toned palette, using naturalistic scenes of plants and animals cast from life.
ref: 2016, A Bouquillon, J Castaing, F Barbe, S.R. Paine, B Christman, T Crépin-Leblond, A.H.. Heuer, Lead-Glazed Rustiques Figulines of Bernard Palissy [1510-90] and his Followers: Archaeometry. 59. 10.1111/arcm.12247.:
text: 2018, Claire Blakey, Minton Majolica: A Visual Feast of Victorian Opulence Minton Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20190505103014/http://www.themintonarchive.org.uk/in-depth-minton-majolica/
Majolica is the term used to describe pottery made of an earthenware body coated with semi-translucent coloured lead glazes. It was developed at the Minton factory in the late 1840s by Léon Arnoux, who had come to the Potteries in 1848.
synonyms: Palissy ware
glosses: Earthenware decorated with coloured lead silicate glazes applied directly to an unglazed body.
examples: text: The Italian pottery, generally known under the names of Majolica, Raffaelle ware, and sometimes by the term of "Umbrian ware," through the production of the fifteenth century [...]"
ref: 1857, Joseph Marryat, History of Pottery and Porcelain, Medieval and Modern, page #:10:
text: Enamel - A vitrifiable substance; opaque, generally Stanniferous majolica [...]
ref: 1857, Joseph Marryat, History of Pottery and Porcelain, Medieval and Modern, page #:373:
text: …the use of the word majolica will be restricted to its original meaning of lustred stanniferous glazed pottery.
ref: 1877, Arthur Beckwith, Majolica and Fayence, Italian, Sicilian, Majorcan, Hispano-Moresque and Persian, page #:23:
text: The word Majolica, or Maiolica […] was applied to all Stanniferous faience of Italy and Spain.
ref: 1907, Edwin Atlee Barber, Tin enamelled Pottery Maiolica, Delft and other Stanniferous Faience, Doubleday, Page & Company New York, page #:6
text: Minton did not use the word maiolica themselves, relying instead on the Victorian version, majolica, which they used to mean wares of Renaissance inspiration, featuring hand painting on an opaque white glaze. […].
ref: 1999, Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, Dictionary of Minton, ACC Art Books (2nd Revised edition 1 Jan. 1999), page #:124
text: 2013, S. De la Vega, A. Castaneda-Gomez del Campo, M. Jimenez-Reyes, A. Tellez-Nieto, D. Tenorio, Majolica ware in the New Spain: an evaluation through NAA. The results of a study about [Tin-glaze] Majolica ceramics recovered from three sites located in Mexico City, Akademiai Kiado´, Budapest, Hungary
The [tin-glaze] Majolica manufacture process has remained practically unchanged through time: shaping is done with a potter’s wheel; drying must be slow... two firings... the first one for biscuit-sintering and the second for the glaze used as a surface for decoration... Glaze is prepared with a mixture of glass-sand (silica-rich sand)... lead, and tin, and the painted decoration is done with metallic oxides such as cobalt blue, iron oxide, and antimony oxide.
text: In the early eighteenth century, earthenwares with tin glazes were the most widely produced ceramics in Europe.
ref: 2019, Metropolitan Museum, Dish, Early 15th century, New York:
glosses: Earthenware coated with opaque white tin-glaze, decorated with coloured metal oxide enamel(s).
Derived terms: majolicaware