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This talk seeks to explain why the most illustrious princes of Europe were avid collectors of red and other earthenwares. It explores the origins of these wares, the medicinal and magical properties ascribed to rare clays from antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the Eighteenth century.
It will look at how the Ottoman Sultans controlled the excavation of the revered clay of the Greek island of Lemnos, Terra Lemnia, and the treasured vessels formed from it.
It considers how the long-established appreciation of other clays in the Mediterranean, the Iberian Peninsula and in the German world created a market and fascination with the Mexican redwares of Tonalá and attempts to explain the high prestige in which they were held in the Hasburg dominions in the sixteenthe and seventeenth centuries and their presence in Kunstakammers across Europe along with the Yixing wares of China and the Böttger stonewares of Meissen.
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