Sevillian tiles: history, types and where to buy them

Sevillian tiles are pieces of glazed ceramic, born in the potteries of Triana, that have lined the dados, courtyards, façades and fountains of Seville for more than six centuries. They can be recognised by four techniques — alicatado, cuerda seca, arista and the flat hand-painted tile — and by a repertoire of geometric, floral and figurative motifs in cobalt blue, yellow, green and white.

The word azulejo comes from the Arabic al-zulayŷ, “small polished stone”, and not from azul, Spanish for “blue”: what defines the piece is its vitreous glaze, not its colour. In Seville today, the heritage of the monuments coexists with the workshops of Triana and with manufacturers like us at Demosaica, who still make hand-painted artisan tiles in the city.

What makes a Sevillian tile different?

What sets the Sevillian tile apart is the combination of three things: a white tin glaze over fired clay, a limited palette of metal oxides and a repertoire of designs that has been repeated since the sixteenth century.

Material, glaze and colours

The tile starts out as a slab of fired clay, the biscuit, covered with a lead-tin glaze: the tin makes the glaze opaque and provides the white ground on which the design is painted, and a second firing fixes the colours. The surface becomes glassy and absorbs neither water nor stains, even though the biscuit is porous. The classic palette comes from four oxides: cobalt for blue, copper for green, antimony for yellow and manganese for the purple of the outlines. That technical limitation, not an aesthetic choice, explains the blue and yellow of the Plaza de España.

The motifs

• Mudéjar geometry: strapwork, eight-pointed stars and interlacing inherited from Almohad and Nasrid alicatado.
• Renaissance and Baroque: grotesques, cartouches, coats of arms and religious scenes painted with a brush, like easel paintings.
• Twentieth-century Regionalism: street-name plaques, street shrines, advertising tiles such as the Studebaker panel on Calle Tetuán (1924) and the ceramics of the 1929 Exposition.
• Popular repertoire: simple florals in two or three colours on a white ground, the most widely used today in kitchens, courtyards and dados.

How has the tile evolved in Seville? A brief history of Triana

The story of the Sevillian tile is the story of Triana: clay from the Guadalquivir fed potteries that moved from medieval alicatado to cuerda seca and arista, took up the Renaissance painting of Niculoso Pisano and enjoyed their golden age between Pickman (1841) and the 1929 Exposition.

Alicatado, cuerda seca and arista (13th–16th centuries)

The city’s first ceramic wall coverings were alicatados: single-colour pieces cut by hand and fitted together into strapwork, like those of the Patio de las Doncellas in the Real Alcázar, from the time of Pedro I (fourteenth century). It was painstakingly slow work, and two shortcuts came out of it: fifteenth-century cuerda seca separated the glazes with a line of manganese and grease that remains matt after firing; arista or cuenca, from around 1500, stamped the design with a relief mould. With arista, Triana became an exporter: its tiles reached Granada, Portugal and the Americas.

Niculoso Pisano and the painted tile (1504)

Francisco Niculoso, a ceramicist who came from Pisa, introduced the flat painted tile: the design is drawn with a brush on the unfired glaze and the tiles are put together like a picture. His portal at the convent of Santa Paula and the Visitation altarpiece in the Alcázar, both from 1504, ushered in two centuries of painted tilework, carried on by Cristóbal de Augusta, who made the dados of the Salón de Carlos V around 1577, and by the Baroque.

From Pickman to the 1929 Exposition and the Centro Cerámica Triana

After the crisis of the eighteenth century, the revival came in 1841 with Charles Pickman’s earthenware factory in the monastery of La Cartuja. Around it, factories such as Mensaque Rodríguez, Ramos Rejano, Santa Ana and Montalván grew up in Triana, and their greatest work is the Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition. In those same decades, floors were being won over by a material that never goes into a kiln: the cement tile. The second half of the twentieth century was a time of closures — Montalván, the last of the great factories, closed in 2011 — and the baton has been taken up by the neighbourhood’s workshops and, since 2014, by the Centro Cerámica Triana, built on the site of the Santa Ana factory’s kilns.

What types of Sevillian tile are there?

Four types are distinguished by technique — alicatado, cuerda seca, arista and the flat painted tile — plus the turn-of-the-century factory-made tile. The last three are still made today; alicatado survives mainly in its Moroccan relative, zellige.

Historic tiles measured around 13 or 14 cm a side. The most common formats today are 10×10, 15×15 and 20×20 cm, with matching borders and listellos.

Where can you see Sevillian tiles in Seville?

The best places to see Sevillian tiles are the Real Alcázar, the Plaza de España, the Casa de Pilatos, the convent of Santa Paula, Los Venerables, La Caridad, Santa Ana and the Centro Cerámica Triana, all within walking distance in a single day, from Santa Cruz to Triana.

• Real Alcázar. The alicatados of the Patio de las Doncellas (fourteenth century), Pisano’s altarpiece in the oratory of the Catholic Monarchs (1504) and Augusta’s dados in the Salón de Carlos V.
• Plaza de España. Forty-eight provincial benches with maps and historical scenes, four bridges representing the old kingdoms of Castile, León, Aragon and Navarre, and painted ceramics on towers, lamp posts and balustrades.
• Casa de Pilatos. One of the largest ensembles of sixteenth-century arista tilework, attributed to the Pulido brothers in the 1530s, with more than a hundred designs.
• Convent of Santa Paula. Niculoso Pisano’s portal (1504), the city’s first great example of painted tile.
• Hospital de los Venerables and Hospital de la Caridad. Seventeenth-century painted dados in courtyards and galleries.
• Triana. The church of Santa Ana holds the ceramic tombstone of Íñigo López, painted by Niculoso in 1503; the Capilla del Carmen is by Aníbal González, and there are still workshops open on Calle Alfarería, Calle Antillano Campos and Calle Callao.
• Centro Cerámica Triana (Calle Callao, 16). The kilns of the Santa Ana factory and a permanent collection spanning the twelfth to the twentieth century.

Sevillian tile, zellige or cement tile? The differences

They are three different materials, even when they share a house: Sevillian tiles and zellige are fired, glazed ceramics; the cement tile is pressed, pigmented cement that sets without firing. That is why they are tested to different standards: UNE-EN ISO 10545 for ceramics and UNE-EN 1339 for cement tiles.

The coefficients come from our laboratory test reports; for comparison, porcelain stoneware stays below 0.5 %. On a glazed surface, water does not get in through the face, but it does through the joints, so the grout matters more than with porcelain. The traditional Sevillian house combines them all: a cement tile floor, a half-height tiled dado and a terracotta courtyard. You can read about what zellige is and how it is applied and about the role of tiles in Andalusian culture.

How can you use Sevillian tiles in a modern home?

In a modern home, Sevillian tiles work best on well-defined surfaces: a dado 90 to 120 cm high, the kitchen splashback, the bench or fountain in the courtyard, the risers of a staircase or the house number. Over large wall areas, alternate decorated pieces with plain ones in the same glaze.

• Half-height dado in hallways, courtyards and bathrooms, topped with a border: it protects the wall and is the most Sevillian use of all.
• Kitchen splashback between the worktop and the wall units: the glaze stands up to grease and daily cleaning.
• Courtyard and fountain: in a country house in Cáceres, Mod. Gamonal from the Toledo collection, in 10×10 cm, clads the clay-brick fountain in the courtyard.
• Stairs and details: tiles on the risers, the number by the front door, a sign or a matching hand-painted washbasin.
• Patchwork with the floor: mix four or five models from the same palette and repeat one or two of their colours in the cement tiles.

How to plan a Sevillian tile dado in six steps

1. Measure the area and add 10 % for cutting waste: a square metre takes 100 pieces in 10×10 cm and about 45 in 15×15 cm.
2. Decide on the height and the top finish: a border, a listello or a ceramic moulding.
3. Choose the model from physical samples and look at them in the light of the room.
4. Use a tile adhesive suitable for glazed ceramics on a flat, sound substrate; outdoors, use a flexible one.
5. Lay with a 2 to 3 mm joint: handmade tiles are not rectified.
6. Grout in a matching colour and clean the glaze before the grout dries.

Where can you buy Sevillian tiles?

In Seville you can buy Sevillian tiles from the workshops of Triana and from local manufacturers such as Demosaica, where we hand-paint our artisan tile in 10×10 cm — 0.52 kg per piece and 100 pieces per m² — and, to order, in 15×15 cm. You can see them in our showroom at C. Arquitectura, 5, Torre 8, Local 18, Norte, 41015 Sevilla, and we ship throughout Spain and to the rest of Europe.

The models are named after villages — Alquife, Barcinas, Albuñol, Cujáyar, Illora and Gamonal — and are grouped into collections such as Toledo, in which every piece is in full colour, alongside the plain AP01 Monocolor for placing between decorated tiles. Being glazed, they are suitable for wet areas; the hand-painted washbasins and the roof tiles in our catalogue belong to the same family.

To ask for a quote or samples, send us the square metres, the format and the models you are interested in; lead times and minimum orders depend on whether the model is in stock or painted to order, so it is best to check them with the workshop. At the showroom, by appointment, you can see them alongside cement tiles and zellige: Monday to Thursday from 8:30 to 14:00 and from 15:30 to 18:00, and Friday from 8:30 to 14:30.

Frequently asked questions about Sevillian tiles

What is the difference between Sevillian and Portuguese tiles?

The Portuguese azulejo largely grew out of the Sevillian one: in the sixteenth century Portugal imported arista tiles from Triana and later developed its own language, with large narrative panels in blue and white showing Dutch influence. The Sevillian tile keeps a broader palette — blue, yellow, green and ochre — and an architectural use: dados, courtyards and façades rather than murals.

Can Sevillian tiles be used outdoors?

Yes, and that is their traditional use: Seville’s courtyards, fountains, benches and façades have stood out in the open for centuries. The glaze protects the face, but the biscuit is porous, so where there is frost it is wise to seal the joints well and avoid surfaces that hold water. For the courtyard floor, choose a non-slip material instead, such as a hydraulic terrazzo with a class 3 slip rating.

How much does a hand-painted Sevillian tile cost?

It depends on the model, the format and whether it is in stock or painted to order: a tile painted piece by piece costs more than a printed one, because every unit passes through a painter’s hands. We do not publish prices on the blog; ask for a quote with the square metres and the model.

Can you get custom Sevillian tiles?

The usual approach is to work with catalogue models and personalise through combination: a patchwork of several designs, plain pieces among the decorated ones or matching borders. If you need a specific motif, a sign or a house number, check with the workshop: not everything can be adapted, and minimum orders change when the piece is painted to order.

How do you clean Sevillian tiles?

With water and neutral soap; the glaze is vitreous and needs neither a water-repellent nor wax. Avoid abrasive scouring pads and strong acids, which do not harm the glaze but do attack the grout in the joints. In kitchens, a mild degreaser is enough. If a piece breaks, it can be replaced on its own: it is worth keeping a few from the same batch.

Why are they called azulejos if they are not all blue?

Because the word does not come from azul, Spanish for “blue”, but from the Arabic al-zulayŷ, “small polished stone”, the same origin as Moroccan zellige. It refers to any flat, glazed ceramic piece, whatever its colour. The association with blue is down to cobalt, the most stable oxide and the most widely used since the sixteenth century.

Choose two or three models and ask for samples so you can see them in your own light: you can buy hand-painted Sevillian tiles from our workshop and combine them with cement tiles or zellige from the same catalogue.