This precious and brilliantly decorated ceramic vase, a pottery class commonly described today with the terms ‘Hispano-Moresque’ is a rare and important example of the ware produced in Malaga for the Nasrid court of medieval Islamic Spain.

This slender Albarello is comprised of a waisted cylindrical form on a short foot. The canary yellow glaze is met with a brownish central frieze depicting roundels alternating with stylised Kufic characters. The inscription is a repetition of al-malik, ‘the king’ suggesting that this was for royal usage; either serving as a medicinal jar designed to hold apothecaries, ointments and dry drugs or to store spices, herbs or pigments.

This jar embodies a unique language of decoration, a marriage of European Gothic elements and Islamic inscriptions and motifs. In short, this complex yet layered art form with a hybrid identity was created from the intermingling of Muslim and Christian cultures and contains centuries of human movement and artistic invention in its decoration.