Faience

Faience pottery is tin-glazed pottery. It is the use of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration. This is got by adding an oxide of tin to a lead glaze.

Modern bowl in a traditional pattern, made in Faenza, Italy, which gave its name to the type.

It was a major advance in the history of pottery, made about 500 years ago. The technique was brought to Al-Andalus in Spain from Moorish potteries in the eastern Mediterranean.

In Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, now called maiolica, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.