majolica

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Earthenware decorated with coloured lead silicate glazes applied directly to an unglazed body, a process invented in Victorian England.

   “The Italian Vase [top, left, p.8] is Majolica, […] The Ewer [bottom, middle, p.8] is a Palissy vase.”

   “Majolica was produced for the first time by Messrs. Minton, in 1850, and they have been for many years the only producers of this article. The name of majolica is now applied indiscriminately to all fancy articles of coloured pottery. When, however, it is decorated by means of coloured glazes, if these are transparent, it ought to be called Palissy ware […].”

   “[Minton] employed no less than 1500. The various branches he developed were earthenware and ordinary soft porcelain, hard porcelain, parian, coloured and enamelled tiles, mosaics, Della Robbia ware, majolica, and Palissy ware.”

   “[…] the coloured glaze decorated wares which we now call majolica, but which Minton referred to as Palissy wares.”

   “Majolica is the term used to describe pottery made of an earthenware body coated with semi-translucent coloured lead glazes. It was developed at the Minton factory in the late 1840s by Léon Arnoux, who had come to the Potteries in 1848.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Earthenware coated with opaque white tin-glaze, decorated with coloured metal oxide enamel, first created in Renaissance Europe.

   “The Italian pottery, generally known under the names of Majolica, Raffaelle ware, and sometimes by the term of "Umbrian ware," through the production of the fifteenth century […].”

   “Enamel - A vitrifiable substance; opaque, generally Stanniferous majolica […]”

   “[…] the use of the word majolica will be restricted to its original meaning of lustred stanniferous glazed pottery.”

   “The word Majolica, or Maiolica […] was applied to all Stanniferous faience of Italy and Spain.”

   “Minton did not use the word maiolica themselves, relying instead on the Victorian version, majolica, which they used to mean wares of Renaissance inspiration, featuring hand painting on an opaque white glaze.”