Pottery is an essential architectural landmark in Seville, and you can find exquisite decoration everywhere, in a huge variety of different colours and styles. It can be like walking through an open-air museum. Unfortunately, because of industrialisation the techniques of handmaking pottery and ceramics were gradually being lost in the second half of the twentieth century, but more recently interest in the art has been reviving.

One of the artists at the forefront of this revival is Isabel Parente, who together with Salud Jimenez has been running a craft pottery workshop in Seville for the last 16 years. “Our handmade pottery was born from a love of the art, and from a concern not to lose the Sevillano ceramic tradition,” she says, “and we want to offer customers things they can’t normally find in the shops.” These include the bold, linear geometrical designs of the Islamic tradition, as well as the gentler curving shapes of the Italian renaissance and baroque.

In the video you can see them demonstrate some of the traditional techniques (for English subtitles use the captions icon), such as cuerda seca (dry rope), low relief, and stencilling and handpainting of pottery.

If you would like to buy one of these handcrafted pieces you can find their workshop at

ISABEL PARENTE
626 963 086
Calle Doña Maria Coronel 21
41003 Sevilla