Examination of Haban vessels with uranium-bearing blue glaze

Ridovics, Anna and May, Zoltán and Bajnóczi, Bernadett and Tóth, Mária (2015) Examination of Haban vessels with uranium-bearing blue glaze. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 60 (2). pp. 485-515. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

From the mid-15th century “berettino”, or “turchino”, lighter and darker, deep blue, cobalt-bearing glazes were used on Italian maiolica objects. At first such vessels were made mainly in Faenza, later they spread to Northern Italy and from the 17^th century they became popular throughout Europe. According to written sources and archaeological finds, potters working in the Anabaptist-Hutterite settlements used blue glaze right from the start. From the second half of the 17^th century there was an increase in the quantity of light and dark blue vessels that were made in many places. In the course of archaeometric research using a handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRF), more than 500 Hutterite and Haban objects were analysed; of these circa 140 had a blue glaze. The measurements made on blue glazes and decorations found uranium in addition to cobalt in 107 objects. Some of the 17^th century vessels and stove tiles were made in Alvinc (Vinţu de Jos, Romania), Sárospatak, and probably in Szobotist (Sobotište, Slovakia). The vessels with a blue or a white glaze, generally painted roughly with a brush, form a characteristic group provisionally attributed to a “mining town workshop”. Their production began at the end of the 17^th century and was passed on by tradition until the 1780s. The workshop probably operated in the vicinity of a mining town in the former Zólyom county, along the upper reaches of the Garam river, in the vicinity of Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica, Slovakia).

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