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Article: Ancient Egyptian faience.
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- September 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Unlike the tin-glazed earthenware of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, Egyptian faience is not clay but a ceramic consisting almost entirely of quartz, the silica material of which glass is made. Egypt produced small-scale masterpieces of faience from about 3500 B.C. until the first century A.D. (see Pls. I, Ia, VII). Some two hundred of these works of art are the subject of the first major exhibition devoted to this medium. The details are given in the note at the end of this article.
The immediate charm of Egyptian faience is the glaze, often blue-green - the result of adding ground copper as the colorant to the ground quartz (sand, quartz pebbles, or ...