A large green-glazed pottery storage jar (tinaja), Spain or North Africa, Almohad, second half 12th/first half 13th century

inscriptions

Repeat of a word, possibly al-tawfiq ‘Success’

The complex stamped decoration and distinctive green glaze shown by the present lot is typical of Almohad pottery production in Western Andalusia and in the Portuguese regions of Algarve and Alentejo. These impressive jars were the precursor to pottery production under the Nasrids which eventually culminated in the magnificent lustre-painted Alhambra vases of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The extent of their decoration varied with bands of animal, geometric, vegetal and architectural motifs combined with calligraphic friezes either stamped to the top of the body, as shown in the present example, or adorning the entire surface (see an example in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, Kenesson 1992, p.97, fig.5, and another in the Museo Arqueologico de Sevilla, Lallone, 2014, fig.1).

Lallone suggests that the complexity of their decoration indicates that such objects were not merely functional but were intended to be visible. Excavations of similar material associate them with noble households where gaps left in the courtyards, known as tinajeros, most likely corresponded with their placement (Lallone 2014). The jars were not intended to support themselves and would have had a corresponding stand as shown by an example in the Muséo de Mértola (Lintz 2014, cat.198 and cat.199, p.345).