Known for his interest in the mediaeval world and collecting, the drawings of architecture and objects from this period by the painter Valentín Carderera were widely appreciated. This drawing shows the courtyard of the Royal Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos. It may well have inspired the decoration of rooms and buildings in the Neo-Mudéjar or Moorish style.

Leonardo Alenza is a Romantic-period painter born in Madrid. His view of the Hall of Justice at the Alhambra Palace was made by using an engraving by David Roberts, but it also shows the influence of Orientalism. Although Alenza appears never to have visited Granada, he was able to access the engraving that Roberts had made during a visit to Spain, which were published in the British books series “The Tourist in Spain”.

An item of furniture with a clear Neo-Mudéjar influence illustrates one of the ways in which Islamic architecture influenced the applied arts, such as in furniture-making. This is seen not only in terms of form, but also in the decorative techniques used such as in marquetry and arabesques.

The engravings, pictures and books on mediaeval Islamic art and architecture, especially in Spain and North Africa, served as inspiration for architects and interior designers. In Germany, this movement began acquiring importance from the mid-19th century, as can be seen in the Moorish Villa at Wilhelma Park, Stuttgart. The building is known as the Alhambra in Germany, on account of the significant influence exerted by the Alhambra Palace during this period in Europe.

Carrillo represents the rich architectural decoration of this room in great detail, although he invented some of the details himself. Originally from Seville himself, the artist knew the building very well, and he followed the Orientalist trend by including figures dressed in the Arab style, as if representing the palace during the Middle Ages. This type of picture falls within two styles: romanticism, on account of the taste for historical representation, and Orientalism, on account of the subject matter.

The engraving shows the Moorish Banqueting Hall (heavily damaged in 1944 during World War II) at Wilhelma Park, in Stuttgart. Designed by the German court architect Karl Ludwig von Zanth in 1837, he was inspired by the Moorish or Alhambresque style to create a complex of buildings and gardens for celebrations planned by King Wilhelm I of Württemberg. The complex has been described as the Alhambra on the Neckar River.

The fascination for the Alhambra Palace was such that small plaques of painted plaster were produced, reproducing parts of the palace. One of the most important workshops belonged to Rafael Contreras, who was a conservator/decorator at the Alhambra. These reproductions were very popular among architects and designers as inspiration for the decoration of so-called Moorish smoking rooms.

Théodore Deck was a well-known French ceramicist who researched and reproduced mediaeval techniques such as a lusterware. In this case, he reproduced the “Vase of the Gazelles”, which had been produced in the Nasrid workshops before 1400. Interest in Nasrid-era pieces and their reproduction was influenced by publications such as that by Owen Jones on the Alhambra, and other similar works. This vase may have been seen at the 1862 International Exhibition in London.

When museums of decorative arts began to appear in the 19th century, they served both as inspiration for artists and manufacturers and allowed theorists to make a reassessment of the “minor arts”. The collections in these museums were made up of numerous objects dating from antiquity to the 19th century. Exhibiting historical objects, such as this 16th-century lusterware plate, had an important influence on the growth of Orientalism.

Publication of mediaeval Islamic antiquities was a key influence of the Orientalist style. Very few of these pieces from the Nasrid period have survived: large and richly decorated in blue and gold, they are known as “Alhambra vases”. Orientalist artists and designers copied both their form and decorative motifs.

The painting is an Orientalist fantasy designed to pander to Europeans’ fascination for the Alhambra Palace. It is largely influenced by two publications: one, Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra and the other the British designer Owen Jones’ book Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra. Direct influence of the book by Owen Jones can be seen in the artist’s elaboration of the colour scheme, especially the stuccoed walls.

Lusterware was one of the most sought-after forms of ceramics during the Middle Ages. In the West, the most important workshops were found in the Spanish Levante, and the techniques used in them lasted up until the 19th-century, when the influence of Orientalism and other revivalist trends gave new impetus to the production of this technique.

Research and recovery of the decorative and manufacturing techniques of mediaeval Islamic art was a feature of the Orientalist and Neo-Mudéjar applied arts. The importance of lusterware as inspiration can be seen in the large number of objects that were produced using this technique during the last quarter of the 19th century both in Spanish workshops and European factories.

The interior decoration of the Arab Room at the residence of the Marquis of Cerralbo (now the Cerralbo Museum in Madrid) shows the influence of Orientalism. This type of room, popular in the grand houses and palaces of Europe and America, would have been used either as a so-called smoking room or to display collections from countries considered to be exotic by Europeans, such as Arabia, China, Asia Minor (Turkey) and Japan.

Villa Crespi is an impressive residence on Lake Orta (Piedmont, northern Italy). With a minaret and rich interior decoration, the Orientalist style and decoration of the villa is attributable to the architect Angelo Colla, whose client Cristoforo Benigno Crespi had a taste for Arab architecture that he acquired during trips to Baghdad to buy cotton.

This vase, produced by the Pickman factory in Seville, demonstrates the influence of Nasrid art on the applied arts of the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. This piece reproduces the form known as “Alhambra vases”, which were decorated using the lusterware technique. Pieces of this sort were exhibited at World Fairs and frequently won awards for design and decoration.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Neo-Mudéjar and Moorish styles is the re-creation of the mediaeval techniques used to decorate objects. This vase, which reproduces the shape of so-called “Alhambra vases”, is decorated using the damascene technique, which, used in the mediaeval period by Muslim artists, came back into fashion in the 19th century as a result of Orientalism.

The fascination for Spain’s Islamic past breathed new life into the ceramic workshops of the region, the lusterware workshops in Valencia, and the Fajalauza workshops in Granada, for example. In the latter, pieces were produced that were decorated with motifs copied from or inspired by the decoration at the Alhambra Palace or by “Alhambra vases”. As the plate here illustrates, certain motifs were reproduced; the gazelles appear on the “Vase of the Gazelles”, which is kept at the Museum of the Alhambra.

The influence of the Neo-Mudéjar or Moorish style can be seen in all the decorative arts, from ceramics and metalwork to furniture-making. This cabinet, the shape of which is taken from mediaeval-style furniture, adopts the inlay technique used in the medieval era to provide decoration formed of stars and arabesques.