Voyage en majolique - Texture, composition et couleurs d’une céramique glaçurée trouvée à Ravello (XVIe siècle, Italie)

Résumé En

The majolica is a very particular ceramic glaze production because of the variety of its components and the complexity of its texture. We are going to become aware of it by studying a typical sample found during the villa Rufolo excavations, in Ravello and attributed to an Italian XVIth century centre of production : Montelupo (high valley of the Arno). The examined shard appears as a body covered with a white glaze used as support to the decoration. The decoration is partially constituted of heads of a horse and of a young man with a headgear. It’s drawn with a blue line and heightened by different colours: beige, red-brown and yellow.The results of the physical study show that a tin-opacified alkaline-lead glaze was applied on a calcareous body. The blue line was prepared by using a salt of cobalt. The beige tint was obtained thanks to iron. The red-brown decoration contains hematite that has not been totally decomposed during the firing. Ochre might have been used to obtain this decoration. The yellow decoration is based on an unexpected colouring agent, prepared from a mixture of elements: Si, Pb, Sb and Sn. Finally, a clear alkaline-lead glaze was applied before firing the ceramic to give more brightness to the colours of the decoration. So the data collected on the occasion of this "travel in majolica", update and clarify the knowledge about texture and the composition of this remarkable type of ceramic glaze of the Mediterranean space. Which characteristics were described as completely as possible, considering the implemented experimental means.