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English-made majolica pitcher with owl mask spout, pineapple body, lavender interior and ferns c. 1860. Manufacturer unknown.

Majolica is earthenware with a white tin glaze, decorated by applying colorants on the raw surface of white slip before firing. The high viscosity of the glaze restricts flow as the glaze melts, giving a glossy surface that maintains the line quality of the decoration.

Majolica is the anglicized version of the Italian maiolica and refers only to tin-glazed and some lead-glazed ware of the 19th century. There is active disagreement about "majolica" vs. "maiolica". Current revisionist thinking would like to assign the "majolica" orthography^[1] to refer to 19th-century transparent, lead-glazed European relief wares, such as those made by the Minton company. Many reproductions of such work, e.g. the teapot shaped and colored like a cauliflower, are still being made today. Tin-glazed Italian ware with in-glaze decoration (brushwork decoration done on top of the raw glaze), the revisionists would assign to the "maiolica" orthography, even though many fine arts museums and standard texts use the "majolica" orthography as well as the other spelling to refer to the Italian wares. The accounts link the name to the export of tin-glazed, decorated earthenwares from Spain (learned from Islamic potters) via Majorca. The transliteration of the Spanish "j" was sometimes to "i", sometimes remained as a "j". In spite of contemporary attempts to simplify, historic texts show both spellings.

A majolica cup from Mexico

Tin-glaze earthenware began in the Middle East. This ceramic knowledge came to Spain as the Muslims conquered North Africa and moved into Europe. Italians imported the pottery from the Spanish island of Majorca, calling it maiolica ware.

Italian Majolica may be referred to by the city in which it was made. Two of the most important are Venice majolica and Urbino majolica.

1. ^ The j is simply the long i used between vowels.

• "Marvels of Maiolica: Italian Renaissance Ceramics from the Corcoran Gallery of Art" by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio. Bunker Hill Publishing, 2004
• “A Guide To Looking At Italian Ceramics” by David Harris Cohen and Catherine Hess, J. Paul Getty Museum in association with British Museum Press, 1993.