The first specimens of Hispano-Moresque pottery were probably made at Malaga, and another important factory was at Valencia. The shape and decoration of the famous Alhambra vase (Fig. 10), one of the earliest specimens of Hispano-Moresque ware (about 1320), clearly points to its Persian origin of design, and was probably made and decorated by a Persian Saracenic artist. It is coloured brown and blue on a yellowish ground, and is decorated with animals and ornament in the Persian manner. It was found about the middle of the sixteenth century, under the pavement of the Alhambra Palace, filled with gold coins. [Illustration: Fig. 10.—The Alhambra Vase Hispano-Moresque.] Hispano-Moresque ware is of a general yellowish-white colour, with an iridescent metallic lustre similar to the Italian maiolica of the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. The ornamentation is lustrous rather than the ground, and is of a golden copper red to a pale yellow golden tint. It has been divided into three classes: the first has the ornamentation of a copper red colour; the ground is nearly covered by ornament, consisting invariably of birds in the midst of flowers and foliage, resembling Persian pottery. The ware of this class is less perfect in manufacture than that of the golden yellow designs, and is the oldest. The second class has the colour of a monochrome golden yellow tint, with the ornament of a small geometric character, and Spanish or Moresque escutcheons. This variety is of Spanish origin of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The third class has the ornament partly rendered in coloured enamels, and has golden yellow armorial bearings, interlacings, and foliage. Animals, such as antelopes, sometimes occur. This ware is the carefully executed work of the fifteenth century. During the first years of the sixteenth century the third class of ware was probably imitated by the Italians. The process of the manufacture of lustred earthenware was introduced into Italy by Arabian or Spanish workmen from the Balearic Isles. [Illustration: Fig. 11.—Hispano-Moresque Vase. (S.K.M.)] A beautiful vase of elegant shape with large perforated handles in Hispano-Moresque, decorated with ivy or briony leaves and tendrils, is in the Kensington Museum (Fig. 11). A curious shaped tile from the Alhambra is shown at Fig. 12, the decoration of which is purely Saracenic. [Illustration: Fig. 12.—Alhambra Tile. (S.K.M.)] Scaliger (1484-1558) tells us that a costly fayence, as beautiful as the pottery of India, was made in his time in the island of Majorca and exported to Italy; he also adds that the name “Maiolica” or Majolica was derived from Majorca. The island of Majorca was an Arab possession until the year 1230, and no doubt the Arabs had there founded potteries for the production of glazed earthenware.