Painter's palette

Portuguese Wikipedia describes the majolica palette as five scales of colour from soluble metal oxides: cobalt blue, bronze green, manganese brown, antimony yellow and iron red. The red, being hard to apply, appears little in the early examples. In the same article, the oxide of tin gives the white. In Portugal, single-figure tiles in cobalt blue became widespread in the 18th century, with decorative elements in the corners helping the eye join separate tiles.

These single-figure tiles were placed above all in kitchens and stairwells, and are also found in religious architecture and, under the Estado Novo, with popular themes. Other ways of putting colour on coexisted with majolica. Decoration at the great fire is painted over the glaze and fired again at above 1200 °C. Decoration with a third fire paints colour on the chacota or the glaze and fires it at a moderate temperature. The printed tile carries the decoration on a decal, transferred to the glazed surface.