Albarello

The appearance of lustred ceramics made in the workshops of Valencia, Manises and Paterna at the end of the fourteenth century and mainly in the fifteenth century was to exert a profound influence on Western ceramic art thanks to its export throughout Europe, principally in Tuscany.

With a slightly narrowed cylindrical body, this albarello has a profile typical of Valencian work of the fifteenth century. A single decoration covers the entire body of the vase, demarcated by two horizontal lines in cobalt blue. The shoulders and neck are embellished with the same foliate motif, while the upper part of the base is covered in a plain white glaze. The body bears a twice-repeated motif consisting of a vertical blue line seemingly functioning as a support for a large plant stem that generates three flowers on either side of this axis. The two larger flowers have intricate petals in blue and golden copper lustre, while a third, smaller flower of a completely different type has four simple petals in golden lustre.

The winding of the stem along the vertical axis creates a series of arcs filled with golden lustre. The white glaze background is covered by a more customary motif of fern or wild liquorice leaves.

The type of decoration found here appears on various albarelli dating from the middle or second half of the fifteenth century, among which notable examples exist at the Met Cloisters in New York,¹ in the Mascort collection,² the Victoria and Albert Museum,³ and the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid.⁴