Posh pottery on show in Granada: the ceramics of the Sultans of the Alhambra

The palace of Charles V art museum is hosting a spectacular exhibition of 215 pieces of pottery that made up the trousseau of the sovereign households as well as some from those of the commoners who lived in this city of palaces

Jorge Pastor

Granada

Monday, 2 December 2024, 10:17

Granada's Alhambra in the south of Spain is world famous for the sumptuous palaces where the sultans lived, for its evocative gardens full of flowers, for the use of running water... but there is a lesser known area of impressive historical value called the Secano. There, in a plot of land close to the Convent of San Francisco and closed to the public, are the remains of the 'industrial estate' of the Alhambra, the area where, in the splendour of this palatine city, there were the potteries where the most marvellous ceramic pieces of Al Andalus were fired in the kilns. Many of them can be seen until 12th January in 'Cerámica Nazarí', a spectacular exhibition in the Palacio de Carlos V where 215 treasures are on display in the form of bowls, bevelled platters, plates, hand basins, funerary tombstones... from the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century to the present day.

The exhibition, which has attracted more than 35,000 visitors since it opened at the end of September, is curated by Jaume Coll, director of the National Museum of Ceramics in Valencia, and Rafael López Guzmán, professor of Art History at the University of Granada. "The aim is to highlight the value of the Alhambra's collections. Jewels that are sometimes exposed to the gaze of locals and strangers and others are kept and conserved in the storerooms", said López Guzmán.

Such is the case with a marvellous large ataifor now on show. An ataifor is a dish designed for shared meals such as couscous dating from the 14th or 15th centuries, which was splendidly restored by Natividad Gómez-Moreno, one of Manuel Gómez-Moreno's three daughters. "I saw it when I was selecting pieces for their backgrounds, and from the first moment I asked for it to be here," said López-Guzmán, who explains that it was made in the workshops of the Secano at the Alhambra. "It is impressive how a flat, geometric design is applied onto a concave and convex surface to make it three-dimensional." The white 'canvas' background was achieved with a tin varnish, while the blue decoration was done with cobalt oxide.

The names of these potters at the Alhambra were never known - some of them were women - but their methods of manufacture have been perfectly studied, as can be seen in one of the two audiovisuals in this 'Cerámica Nazarí' exhibition. They worked in an open space in the form of a courtyard for processing the raw material, which was obtained from quarries such as the one in Alfacar, and the rectangular side-rooms were used for the potters' wheels, the drying areas where the pots were lined up in biscuit form, then applying the glazes and various layers of handpainted decorations. The kilns were located on the outside. The lustre pieces were placed in the smaller kilns, which allowed better control of the firing process - achieved by reductive combustion. The potters' wheels were highly efficient and reached a high speed of rotation.

This exhibition of Nasrid ceramics is divided into four main areas. The first, located in the sacristy of the chapel of the Palace of Charles V, takes the visitor through the shaping and evolution of Al Andalus as a style, an art. The visitor can see small bowls, flasks or small objects in zoomorphic shapes and precious, gilded earthenware. Then we enter the main exhibition area, the one dedicated to the main period under Nasrid rule, which follows a concentric trail that ends with the famous Gazelles Vase, considered one of the all-time masterpieces of craftsmanship.

We move on to the third room, the passageway to the crypt. Here we find ceramics produced after the capture of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, where the earlier influences are still clearly visible. Visually, this section begins with a crossing point that links the Gazelles Vase with the reproductions made between the 19th and 20th centuries that show the recognition and emulation of the technique in a different cultural context. The tour ends with an immersive experience bringing together the past and the present ways of making the most pleasingly aesthetic pottery in Granada style. A catalogue has also been published that collates all the research done by the most qualified scholars.

We might think the Alhambra is all about architecture, but it is also about art in the form of a humble raw material called clay.

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