Our ceramic studio-shop is in Barcelona, Spain and we decorate tiles by hand using the Majolica method. We have two types of designs Set Designs and Private Designs.

The Set designs are ones we repeat and they can all be seen in our Web where the sizes and prices are given. Private designs are special orders to fulfill the requirements of a client. We work in strict collaboration with architects and interior decorators, to create names, decorations for shops, hotels, restaurants, entrances of buildings and private houses, in accordance with the wishes of the client to affect a good design artistically and technically.

This method came to Spain, from the Arab countries in 10th century and became a flourishing industry in Valencia, it gradually spread to in Italy in the 15th century, in the towns of Deruta and Gubbio where it is known as Maiolica, in the 16th century to Holland where it is known as Delft, France as Faience and then to England in the 17th century where it lasted about one hundred and fifty years and was known by the name of Lambeth and now is known in England and America as Majolica.

What makes the Majolica method different is that glaze-base and the decoration are fired together. First the clay is fired to 600 C. or more and this turns it into a ceramic and changes it into a material that is solid, breakable but still porous and is know as bisque. For the second firing the bisque fired pieces are covered with a lair of a white opaque glaze-base of tin oxide. The prepared designs, which have been drawn and pounced, are then marked on to the raw glaze-base with vegetable-ash, then the pieces are decorated with Metallic oxide glaze colors. Finally, the glaze-base and decoration are fired together to vitrify at 980 C. The vitrifying makes the glaze-base an opaque lair of glass and this stops the bisque being porous and the result is a brightly colored, glossy surface that maintains and enhancethe lines, colors and quality of the deco ...