Kütahya ceramics is finely painted earthenware and wall tiling from the Turkish city of Kütahya, where high quality ceramics were produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The characteristic feature is cobalt blue painting on a milk-white ground, to which turquoise, green and red were added later. The city is still a ceramics centre and the tradition continues there.
Technically Kütahya work is related to faience: a porous earthenware body covered with an opaque white tin glaze, on which the decoration is painted in metal oxides. A glaze firing then fixes the painting beneath the transparent glaze.
Use in building
Besides tableware and vessels, Kütahya produced above all wall tiling. That tiling is found in:
- Mosques, mausolea and bath houses — whole wall surfaces covered with tile panels
- Churches and monasteries in the Ottoman empire — Kütahya also supplied the Armenian community
- Later European interiors — from the nineteenth century as decorative wall covering and fireplace tiling
Connection with the European tile tradition
Blue and white painting on tin glaze is the same technique that led to the Delft tile in the Netherlands. Both go back to the maiolica tradition that spread across Europe by way of Italy and Spain, and both used a white tin glaze in pursuit of the look of Chinese porcelain. Put Kütahya tiles beside seventeenth century Dutch tiles and the kinship in technique and colouring is clear.
Points to watch when using it
- Internal use — porous earthenware with a tin glaze is not frost resistant and does not belong outdoors in a northern European climate
- Crazing in the glaze — fine crackle is normal in this type of glaze, but it makes the surface more prone to soiling
- Restoration — do not clean historic tiling yourself with aggressive products; the tin glaze is soft and can be dulled beyond repair
Related terms
- Tile
- Faience
- Maiolica
- Glaze
- Earthenware
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