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This is a signed Benlloch vase, painted by hand at the workshop in Manises. Its shape is an eight-sided faceted baluster, the flat planes picking up light along their edges. The decoration is deliberately spare — one soft green over an ivory crackle ground — which leaves the geometry to carry the piece. That fine crazing across the ivory isn't wear; it's the workshop's own crackle glaze, a known marker of mid-century Manises ware. The new shade, loose-pleated in ivory linen, softens the sharp facets with its uneven hem, and the green twisted cord matches the painted green.
The signature underneath is "Benlloch España" in cursive. Pieces marked this way are collected as much for the workmanship as for their lineage in a town that has made ceramics for seven hundred years.
About Benlloch Manises
Manuel Benlloch set up the workshop in Manises, near Valencia, in the early years of the 20th century, and it earned its reputation on finely painted majolica and that distinctive ivory crackle. Over three generations the Benlloch family worked in the Spanish Revival and Hispano-Moresque manner, folding Islamic-derived ornament into European decorative habits. Signed "Benlloch España" examples are sought today both for their craft and for their place in the story of Manises, one of the oldest centres of ceramic-making in Spain.