The earliest traces of the use of stanniferous enamel glaze in Europe, known to us, is always in connection with a decoration, produced by the reduction of certain metallic salts in the reverberatory furnace, leaving a thin film upon the surface, which gives that beautiful and rich effect known as _reflet métallique_, _nacré_, _cangiante_, _rubino_, _reverberato_, &c., and in England as lustred ware. In Italy the use of a metallic lustre was apparently known and practised previous to the introduction of the tin enamel, for we have abundant examples of early “mezza-maiolica” from the potteries of Pesaro or Gubbio, glazed only with the oxide of lead and glass, and which are brilliantly lustred with the metallic colours. None of these can, however, be referred to an earlier date than the latter half of the fifteenth century. Of whom, then, did the Italian potters learn this art? We have no answer to the question in any historical record, and we are forced to infer that the name by which this lustred ware was known at the time and in the country of its production, reflected that of [Illustration] the place from which it was derived. Accordingly we find that the coarser lead glazed lustred ware was known as “mezza-maiolica,” while that more nearly resembling its original, by the use of the tin enamel, was known as “maiolica.” That the Moorish potters of Majorca conveyed this knowledge, and that the Italians named their ware after that of the island, would seem a reasonable conclusion. M. Jacquemart, however, thinks it equally probable that although the Majorcan wares were well known in Italy, this art may really have been communicated by Persian potters, or their pupils, coming to the eastern ports of Italy; and that the style of decoration on the early Italian lustred wares is more Persian than Moresque. This would also in some measure explain why the lustrous colours were used at some potteries anterior to the adoption of the stanniferous enamel. The woodcut represents a bowl at South Kensington, no. 503, possibly of this manufacture, and of great rarity. In date it is somewhat late; about 1490. [Illustration] The general term “Maiolica,” also spelt “Majolica,” has long been and is still erroneously applied to all varieties of glazed earthenware of Italian origin. We have seen that it was not so originally but that the term was restricted to the lustred wares, which resemble in that respect those of the island from which they had long been imported into Italy. It is a curious fact, proving their estimation in that country, that nearly all the specimens of Hispano-moresque pottery which adorn our cabinets and enrich our museums have been procured in Italy; comparatively few pieces having been found in Spain.