Valencia

Valencia

The Valencia area produced a wide range of pottery, but the most extensive exports were those of lustreware, sometimes lustre and blue, which can be found all across Europe.
The wide distribution of Valencian pottery all over Europe has led to a great number of physical or chemical analyses of one sort or another. Many are confounded by the geographical proximity of the various workshops in the Valencia area and the uniformity of the surrounding geological and geomorphological terrain which creates difficulties when attempting to differentiate between fabrics.

In general, the fabrics of Valencian finewares are usually very fine and light in colour (pinkish or beige), those of lustreware have a characteristic orange core and lighter, yellowish margins. Sometimes inclusions of limestone, mica and iron-rich clay pellets are visible even to the naked eye, although the differences are much clearer in thin-section. No clear distinctions in fabric composition can be made between the different wares produced in the region such as Green and Brown, Blue, and Lustreware, although slight differences seem to occur between centres or chronological spans.

Several phases of lustreware production can be identified:
–Malagan-style lustreware (c.1300-1350)
–Pula-style lustreware (c.1320-1375)
–Classic lustreware (15th century)
–Late lustreware (16th century)
–Overall lustreware (17th century)