Tuscan Dinnerware
 Original Tuscan dinnerware comes in a variety of styles and colors. Choose between
- rustic Italian earthenware crockery
- colorful handpainted majolica tableware
- and elegant bone china.
This is a rather long page, so if you would like to skip to a particular section, just use these links:
Really Rustic Tuscan Style Dinnerware
Italian Crockery With An Antique Twist:
Maiolica Pottery Lead Alert!
Decorating A Room With Tuscan Style Dinnerware
Fine Bone China And "Royal Tuscan" Dinnerware
BUY Tuscan Style Dinnerware
Really Rustic Tuscan Dinnerware
 The most basic type of Tuscan dinnerware is brown earthenware in simple shapes and with a transparent, colorless glaze to liquid-proof the body.
I took these photos (left and below) in a Tuscan kitchen ...
... but you'll come across similar pieces in all Mediterranean countries.
The down-to-earth material is perfect for Tuscan style home decorating, particularly when you're looking to create simple, country-style Tuscan interiors.
Historically, Tuscany was never a rich part of Italy (with the exception of cities like Florence or Siena). Most Tuscans used to scrape out a living on their own small parcel of land. This is the type of Tuscan dinnerware they would have owned.
But even if you're going for a more ornate brand of Tuscan style home decorating, terracotta is a color that can help you tone down and 'ground' stronger colors in the room.
So if, for example, you wanted to paint your walls in intense, warm hues or use bold-colored Tuscan fabrics on the table and chairs, plain brown Tuscan style dinnerware might be perfect for your home.
(Return to Top)
Maiolica Pottery –
Tuscan Dinnerware With An Antique Twist
 Majolica pottery (the Italian spelling is maiolica) is dark earthenware covered with a white tin glaze and decorated with colorful patterns or images.
No one knows with absolute certainty where the name "majolica" comes from.
The most convincing explanation I have come across is that this type of Tuscan dinnerware first came to Italy from southern Spain, via the island of Majorca.
Many people thought the pottery had been made in Majorca, and so it ended up being named, in a slightly garbled fashion, after the island.
However, names aside, the real origin of what is now called majolica pottery goes much further back.
(Return to Top)
a) How The Trend Developed
Tin-glazed pottery was first developed in the Middle East, before or during the 9th century. Then Arab/Berber conquerors (the 'Moors') brought the craft to Spain in the early Middle Ages.
In Spain, potters perfected a glazing technique that added a metallic sheen to the finished product (you can see it well in the photo above left).
This "lustreware" was a great success with Italian importers, and many wealthy Italian families commissioned their own maiolica dinnerware designs in Spain.
The photos above and to the right show details of 15th-century Spanish-made ceramics. But during this time, majolica production was already established in Italy.
The main artistic 'hotspots' were in central Italy, especially the area around Florence, which produced a large amount of very sophisticated Tuscan dinnerware.
At the same time, there were majolica pottery workshops scattered as far north as Turin, Venice and Padua, and some as far south as Sicily.
By the way, you may have come across the term 'faience' – this is exactly the same as majolica pottery, but with a new French name, which it got from the northern Italian town of Faenza.
Faenza was a center of majolica production in the late Renaissance; it exported tin-glazed wares (and leaked the secrets of the craft) to France and further north, across Europe and to the British Isles.
(The picture shows a bowl from Faenza, painted in a traditional pattern.)
(Return to Top)
b) What Majolica Pottery Looks Like
 Well, I wish I had taken photos of all the maiolica plates and bowls laid out in shop fronts in Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra and Florence. But for some weird reason, I forgot!
(Duh :-)
One of the few pictures that I did take of Tuscan dinnerware shows a selection of the design styles you can find in Tuscany (and Umbria) today.
Many current designs for Tuscan style dinnerware are inspired by originals from the Renaissance; some are quite crudely executed (and I think, aimed solely at the tourist market).
Other designs are definitely of a more recent date (the blue-and-white footed bowl at the bottom, for example, depicts a pattern of Assisi embroidery. But strictly speaking, this one's Umbrian, not Tuscan dinnerware).
There are still a few workshops today that produce majolica pottery of the same quality as it was done 500 years ago. Some of their Tuscan dinnerware is covered with elaborate, colorful paintings; other pieces, like the 15th-century original below (see Less Is More!), in intricate patterns.
This type of Tuscan dinnerware does have its price, but that's not the only thing you'll want to consider. There is another (potential) problem ...
(Return to Top)
Lead Alert!
 The glaze on traditionally produced majolica pottery contains lead.
Lead is a poisonous heavy metal that is particularly dangerous to young children.
Even at very low exposure rates, it can do irreparable damage to their brain development and their nervous system.
I won't go into the unpleasant details here, but please make sure that you only use Tuscan style dinnerware in your household that has been certified (by a credible body) as safe for food use.
If you're not sure whether the glaze on your Tuscan dinnerware contains any lead, then don't use this tableware to eat or drink from, and don't use it for serving hot or liquid foods. If you would like to put it to use in a Tuscan style kitchen design, it's safe for storing dry goods that will be peeled - or washed thoroughly - before they're eaten.
Alternatively, you could use Tuscan style dinnerware for some of the following Tuscan home decorating ideas ...
(Return to Top)
Decorating with Tuscan Dinnerware
Tuscan style dinnerware - particularly colorful maiolica pottery - can impart a lot of character, even to an otherwise plain dining room.
 1. Display It
a) If you've set the scene with Tuscan dining room furniture, try displaying your Tuscan dinnerware in a traditional wooden hutch.
b) If your dining room is more on the modern, white-box side, Tuscan style dinnerware will add a new dimension to it.
Even if you display just a few pieces of painted Italian crockery on a ledge along the wall, like museum pieces ...
... their lively colors and patterns will lift the whole room and give it more depth.
c) A large Tuscan majolica plate always looks amazing when you hang it above a doorway.
d) A Tuscan style dinnerware plate, bowl, or jug will also make a magnificent centerpiece on the dinner table.
For best effect, cover the table with a heavy off-white linen tablecloth or use a single-color runner. This will focus everyone's eyes on the 'star'.
e) Group several Tuscan dinnerware plates together on a wall. If they're roughly the same size, you could arrange them along straight lines.
For a more informal atmosphere, compose a cluster of colorful Italian crockery in a variety of sizes.
Top Tip:
If you only have one or two original Tuscan maiolica plates, combine them with a collection of simple (smaller and larger) glazed earthenware plates/jugs/bowls in single colors. This will enhance the 'wow factor' of your showpiece(s).
2. Use It
 a) Store Napkins, napkin rings, coasters, cutlery in Tuscan majolica containers.
b) Display fruit, nuts, treasures from nature on painted Italian crockery.
c) Flowers and plants live happily in Tuscan dinnerware mugs or small bowls (and vases, of course!)
d) Rustic, basic terracotta pots and plates go beautifully with rough woven baskets and can inject earthiness into even the coolest environment.
Fill them with fruit, or cakes for dessert (as in the photo above – that's Tuscan dinnerware in a farmhouse near San Gimignano)
3. Less is More!
Seeing as Tuscan style dinnerware is often colorful and vividly patterned, I suggest you use it with restraint.
 Beware of a 'Tuscan overkill' with patterned Tuscan fabrics, vivid wall colors, and majolica pottery everywhere.
The original kitchens and dining rooms that I've seen in Tuscany were all decorated in subdued, multi-layered neutrals with just a few splashes of color and pattern.
When it comes to Tuscan style home decorating, too much color is the sign of an amateur.
So ...- ... if you're using a complete set of Tuscan dinnerware for the meal, set it on a bare wooden table, or on single-color placemats / a single-color tablecloth.
- ... if your kitchen or dining room has colored and/or patterned walls, combine just a few pieces of Tuscan style dinnerware on the table with heavy, white Italian porcelain.
- ... use pieces of majolica pottery as visual accents in no more than two places in a room (for example table/wall, above-the-lintel/sideboard). Otherwise, the room can end up looking too busy.
(Return to Top)
Fine Bone China and Royal Tuscan Dinnerware
At the beginning of the 18th century, after many attempts to replicate Chinese porcelain in Europe, the first high-quality porcelain was produced in Meissen, Germany. A few decades later, in 1749, Thomas Frye obtained a patent for bone china in England, a porcelain that was made by adding bone ash to the clay mixture, and that was bright white, translucent, and strong.
This delicate, elegant, new stuff quickly replaced tin-glazed earthenware in the prominent households of Europe. Some had their own sets designed with their family's monogram or coat of arms.
 Tuscan dinnerware was no exception. From the 1800s, majolica was on the way out, and wealthy Tuscans were displaying fine bone china collections in their palazzi (here's an example from Volterra).
Mass production soon made white porcelain affordable for the middle classes, and the workshops that had been providing traditional Tuscan style dinnerware for centuries went out of business.
"Royal" Tuscan dinnerware
Maybe you've come across 'Royal Tuscan' fine bone china, and wondered whether - even though you'd never heard of a king of Tuscany – 'Royal Tuscan' may be a special type of original Tuscan dinnerware?
It isn't. "Tuscan" was the 19th-century trade name of RH & SL Plant, porcelain manufacturers in north Staffordshire, England. The company was sold to the Wedgwood Group in about 1970. Wedgwood then changed the trade name to "Royal Tuscan Fine Bone China".
The business did produce many pretty bone china designs, but I don't think any of them owe a great deal to original Tuscan dinnerware! (You can buy Tuscan fine English bone china second hand, in antiques shops and at auctions.)
(Return to Top)
Buy Tuscan Dinnerware
If you lived close to the Italian border, I'd say, just drive down to Florence, Deruta or Montelupo, and visit the potteries!
But you may be halfway around the planet from Italy, so your next best bet is eBay, particularly if you're not after a complete 37-piece set of personalized, monogrammed Tuscan style dinnerware.
Check out what's on offer today:
(Return to Top)
Would you like to be kept informed with news and updates to this site? Subscribe to my blog and/or free e-zine - it's simple, and keeps you supplied with ...
... fresh home decorating news and ideas year-round!
|
Return from Tuscan Dinnerware to Tuscan Decorating
Return from Tuscan Dinnerware to Dream Home Decorating homepage
|
