Museum’s ceramic collection includes fine representative ceramic objects from Greece as well as from areas where Greeks lived in the past. Ceramics were used as architectural features of functional or decorative purposes and as household articles.
They were made of terracotta and faience, either unglazed or glazed and coloured my means of various substances.
Glazed and decorated pottery in general received a particular boost following the Asia Minor Disaster, when many Greek artisans from the celebrated Ottoman ceramic centers of Nicaea, Kioutaheia (Kutahya) and Çanakkale settled in Greece. Bringing with them Byzantine memories and oriental influences, they created a new school of pottery that employed striking combinations of form, color and sculpture.
The most important representatives were Vardaxis and Theodorou in Thessaloniki, Dimitris Mygdalinos in Kokkina, Yiasirainis in Archangelos on Rhodes, and others. The leading proponent was Minas Avramides, the famous Barba-Minas, who produced extraordinary Byzantine-style ceramics in Kordelio, Thessaloniki.
