'The Porcelain of the Moors': The Alhambra Vases in Enlightenment Spain

Abstract

In December 1763, Charles III viewed a series of drawings commissioned by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando to document the architecture and decoration of the Alhambra, the palatine city above Granada that served as the seat of the final Muslim dynasty on the Iberian Peninsula. While the king expressed his deep satisfaction with the Alhambra project as a whole, he was particularly taken by a pair of watercolours depicting two monumental Islamic earthenware vases, and he instructed the Academy to make exact copies that could serve as designs for the artisans in his recently founded porcelain factory. Although no such ceramics were ever produced, examining the convergence of the Academy's effort to record aspects of the Alhambra and early history of the royal porcelain factory offers new insights into attitudes toward Spain's Islamic past.