"This book is the culmination of nearly thirty years' work in caring for, studying, and developing the collections of the Ashmolean Museum by Timothy Wilson, long-time Keeper of Western Art. Wilson is well-known as a specialist in the study of European Renaissance ceramics. The Ashmolean collections have their origins in the collection of C.D.E. Fortnum (1820-1899), but have been developed further in the last quarter-century, so that they can claim to be one of the top such collections of Renaissance ceramics worldwide. This book, containing 289 catalogue entries, completely encompasses the Museum's collection of postclassical Italian pottery, including pieces from excavations. In addition it includes catalogue entries for some seventy selected pieces of pottery from France, the Low Countries, England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Mexico, in order to present a wide-ranging picture of the development of tin-glazed pottery from Islamic Spain through to recent times. It also includes an essay by Kelly Domoney of Cranfield University, and Elisabeth Gardner of the Ashmolean's Conservation Department, on the technical analysis and conservation history of some pieces in the collection."--Publisher's description.