Tunisia Way

The art of the pottery and ceramics is thousand-year-old in Tunisia which knows two types of pottery: a pottery turned by the men and another modelled by the women: the latter meets only in rural environment; it is primarily utility. Modelling, the cooking and the decoration of these potteries are remained primitive. The lines, the points, the ciliés features, the teeth of saw, the crosses, the rhombuses are as many reasons which point out tattooings and rural fabrics of wool.

When with the turned pottery, it seems that they are the potters of Jerba which were the first to use the turn since the most moved back times. They hold their improvement of this art of old Egypt, Phénicie, Greece and Rome. In fact also the potters of Guellala (Jerba) are at the origin of the creation of other centers potters in the Tunisian littoral. Tunis, Nabeul, Moknine them must have given birth to there an of the same production invoices than that of Jerba.
But if the porous pottery “chaouat” is identified in Guellala, that enamelled, yellow, green or brown, is synonymous with Nabeul. The potters of this city owe their fame with this technique.
The use of the glazes and metallic oxides came from Baghdad at the time aghlabide (IX ème century).
Ceramics Fatimide and Zirîde (IX ème century is characterized by a representational art devoting the representation of human figures and animals. This art was spread in the of the same Maghreb countries Q' in Andalusia and Sicily.
 From the XVII ème century Tunisian ceramics is subject to strongly the Turkish influence: the ceramists tunisois, installed with Qallaline, produce a polychrome ceramics pointing out that of Turkey Ottmane.   
 Nowadays, ceramics knows a true rebirth. The development of the sector of the building gave him a new strength by allowing the emergence of a great number of artisanal manufacturing units as well as industrial. But ceramics is not limited to the utility functions since it has an increasingly important place in the play activities of the Tunisian plastics technicians who regard it more as art with whole share than like simple technique.