rent
ochre and metallic ash left were washed off, leaving the iridescent
films in all their beauty.

The technical practices of the Spanish potters and the composition of
the lustre pigments are given in Cocks's account of the processes
followed at Muel (Aragon) in 1585. The Manises receipt of 1785
gives:--copper 3 oz., red ochre 12 oz., silver 1 peseta piece, sulphur 3
oz., vinegar 1 qt. and the ashes scraped off the pots after lustring 36
oz.[13] Interesting documents have recently been published concerning
the works executed by the "Saracen," John of Valencia, at Poitiers in
1384, and it is certain, from the list of materials supplied to him,
that he made there tiles that were enamelled and lustred.

The earliest record of lustred pottery in Spain is the geographer
Edrisi's mention of the manufacture of "golden ware" then carried on at
Calatayud in Aragon in 1154. Ibn Sa'id (1214-1286) speaks of the glass
and the golden pottery made at Murcia (city), Almeria and Malaga. From
the 4th century the notices which have come down to us divide themselves
into two main groups relating to the industry (a) at Malaga; (b) at
various localities, but especially Manises in Valencia.

_Malaga_--Malaga was situated within the Moorish kingdom of Granada,
which formed, from 1235 until the late 15th century, the last remnant of
Moorish dominion in Spain. Here under the art-loving Nasride dynasty,
Mussulman arts and learning flourished to an unprecedented degree. In
1337 Ahmed ben-Yahya al-Omari enumerates, among the craft productions of
Malaga, its golden pottery, the like of which he declares is not to be
met with elsewhere. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta mentions (1350)
the Malagan golden pottery, as does Ibn al-Hatib (1313-1374) of Granada,
in his description of Malaga. The principal monument of the period is
the royal palace of Granada, begun in 1273, and finished during the 14th
century, from which period most of its ornamentation dates. Two vases
were discovered there, of which the existing one, known as the "Alhambra
vase," is admittedly the most imposing product of Hispano-Moresque
ceramic art extant. Its amphora-shaped body (4 ft. 5 in. high) is
encircled by a band of Arabic inscription, above which are depicted
gazelles reserved in cream and golden lustre upon a blue field; the rest
of the body and the prominent handles are covered with compartments of
arabesques and inscriptions in the same colours; and panels on the nec