A magnificent pair of monumental Hispano-Moresque lustre pottery urns, Manises, Spain, 1500-1700

both of deep form with sloping walls on a high pedestal foot with horizontal mouldings, decorated in copper-golden lustre over a cobalt blue glaze with two registers of floral sprays divided by a raised moulding with crimped edge, a further raised and crimped moulding below the rim

ex-Robert Strauss Collection, Christie's, 21 June 1976, lot 5

examination under UV light show breaks with associated repair and re-painting particularly concentrated around the base and foot, as viewed
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Grand in scale and rich in design and executon (with provenance from an esteemed private collection), these urns are virtuoso examples of the fine art of lustre-making in Spain, a technique that was first introduced to the Iberian peninsula by Arab craftsmen.

The distinctive coppery lustre brilliantly offset by the deep blue ground is reminiscent of the Mamluk lustre tradition of 13/14th-century Syria, of which the most celebrated example would be the jar or vase in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait (see Watson 2004, pp.396-397, cat. no.RI). In his analysis of the al-Sabah jar, Watson rightly notes the "more than passing resemblance to designs on Spanish lustreware from Malaga" and hints at the cross-fertilisation of patterns promoted by trading links. This commercial and artistic exchange is confirmed by the abundance of fragments of Malagan pottery recovered from the rubbish heaps of Fustat, Old Cairo (refer to sherd collections at the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum).

The present urns relate to a group of large-scale Malagan lustre-decorated vessels for which there are as yet no clear dating parameters. Anthony Ray ascribes the tazza and bowl in the V&A to Valencia (Manises), ? 1700-1750. However, the argument for an earlier date for the whole group is supported by the link to Mamluk wares expounded above, and the closeness of some of the vegetal designs to Spanish wares of circa 1500 (compare, for instance, catalogue no. 26, in El refleto de Manises. Cerámica hispano-morisca del Museo de Cluny de París, Barcelona, 1996, pp. 90-91).