Type Name:

LUSTERWARE

Category:

MAJOLICA

Production Origin:

SPAIN

Production Date Range:

1490-1550

Defining Attributes:

Cream-colored, compact paste with little visible temper. Vessel walls are thin.

Decorated and glazed with metallic paints and glaze produced by the addition of copper and silver, producing a reflective, iridescent metallic luster.

Background is typically off-white tin enamel to which metallic elements are added. Designs are painted in copper-colored metallic paint.

Some examples have blue painted designs combined with copper metallic elements. Vessels often have a clear, lustered glaze.

Design elements are intricate combinations of geometric and stylized floral elements, usually covering the vessel interior.

Vessel Forms:

BOWL
ESCUDILLA
PLATE

Comments:

Lusterware, or Reflejo Metálico, is part of a very long Hispano-Moresque tradition of luxury lusterware ceramics, that continues today in Spain. It is rare in American sites, and most sherds have been recovered from the Dominican Republic.

Published Definitions:

Goggin 1968:141-142; Deagan 1987; Fairbanks 1973; Lister and Lister 1982