National Museum of Ceramics

The national ceramics museum in Valencia, one of three in Spain, has occupied since 1947 the palace of the Marques de Dos Aguas, whose earliest parts date from the fifteenth century, although it is primarily a Rococo building, its street frontage ornamented with lions and other wild beasts dating from 1740. The upper floor is occupied by a collection of pottery that includes Greek, Roman and Islamic wares, Japanes and Chinese porcelains, and modern works. The ground floor includes many brightly-coloured tiles (‘azuledjos’, from the Valencia region, as well as faience from Toledo and Seville. Much of the pottery is displayed as it would have been seen in the home of a noble family, and a particular highlight is a tiled kitchen in the Valencia style of the nineteenth century. Interactive displays illustrate the technology of pottery manufacture.