majolica

English

Coloured glazes majolica (sense 1). Thick glazes applied simultaneously to an unglazed body, no fine brush work, no opaque white tin-glaze coating.

Tin-glazed majolica (sense 2). Coated both sides with opaque white tin-glaze, fine brush-painted decoration, manganese oxide (brown/black) brush painted maker's name to reverse.

Coloured glazes majolica (sense 1). Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

Tin-glazed majolica (sense 2). Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

Tin-glazed majolica (sense 2), opaque white tin-glaze, fine brush-painted decoration.

Coloured lead glazes majolica (sense 1). Thick glazes, no fine brush work, no opaque white tin-glaze coating.

Alternative forms

maiolica

Etymology

From Italian maiolica, named after the Island of Mallorca (formerly known as Maiòlica), which was once a commerce center for work produced in Valencia, Spain. Doublet of Mallorca and Majorca.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /məˈd͡ʒɒlɪkə/, /maɪˈɒlɪkə/
Audio (Southern England): (file)

Noun

majolica (countable and uncountable, plural majolicas)

Earthenware decorated with coloured lead silicate glazes applied directly to an unglazed body, a process invented in Victorian England.
Synonym: Palissy ware

Hyponyms: Palissy majolica, Victorian majolica, Minton majolica, Sarreguemines majolica
- 1862, Editorial Staff, Art Journal Catalogue, Exhibited Class XXXV, no.6873, D78., page 8:
  The Italian Vase [top, left, p.8] is Majolica, […] The Ewer [bottom, middle, p.8] is a Palissy vase.
- 1876, G. Phillips Bevan, British manufacturing industries, page 42:
  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 […] .
- 1904, Arthur Hayden, Chats on English China, New York, page 184:
  [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.
- 1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC:
  I propose that we should spend our honeymoon at Baiae. I have a villa at Baiae. It is there that I keep my grandfather’s collection of majolica. The sun shines there always.
- 1999, Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, Dictionary of Minton, ACC Art Books (2nd Revised edition 1 Jan. 1999), page 124
  […] the coloured glaze decorated wares which we now call majolica, but which Minton referred to as Palissy wares.
- 2018, Claire Blakey, “Minton Majolica: A Visual Feast of Victorian Opulence”, in The Minton Archive‎^[1], archived from the original on 5 May 2019:
  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.
(originally) Earthenware coated with opaque white tin-glaze, decorated with coloured metal oxide enamel, first created in Renaissance Europe.
Hyponyms: Italian maiolica, Hispano-Moresque ware, Talavera, faience, Delftware.
- 1857, Joseph Marryat, History of Pottery and Porcelain, Medieval and Modern, page 10:
  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 […] .
- 1857, Joseph Marryat, History of Pottery and Porcelain, Medieval and Modern, page 373:
  Enamel - A vitrifiable substance; opaque, generally Stanniferous majolica […]
- 1877, Arthur Beckwith, Majolica and Fayence, Italian, Sicilian, Majorcan, Hispano-Moresque and Persian, page 23:
  […] the use of the word majolica will be restricted to its original meaning of lustred stanniferous glazed pottery.
- 1907, Edwin Atlee Barber, Tin enamelled Pottery Maiolica, Delft and other Stanniferous Faience, Doubleday, Page & Company New York, page 6
  The word Majolica, or Maiolica […] was applied to all Stanniferous faience of Italy and Spain.
- 1999, Paul Atterbury and Maureen Batkin, Dictionary of Minton, ACC Art Books (2nd Revised edition 1 Jan. 1999), page 124
  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.
- 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.

Usage notes

The spelling maiolica is sometimes used to specifically refer to the older (tin-glazed) variant (sense 2).

Derived terms

majolicaware

Translations

German: Majolika (de) f
Italian: maiolica (it) f