290). The bodies of the urns are divided into two decorative fields by an encircling horizontal band. The areas above and below contain a series of demarcated panels suggesting elaborate arches, all outlined by broad bands of silver leaf. The panels and the band contain a profusion of gold and silver damascened ornament over a stippled ground. Many circles have an elaborate eight-pointed star, a decorative element most often associated with Hispano-Arab lustreware pottery manufactured at Manises, near Valencia. A series of alternating anthemia and filled cartouches decorates the bulbous support for the neck, while the latter is divided into eight vertical panels containing varying geometric and vegetal designs. The handles have broad borders of damascened anthemia enclosing pierced foliate patterns. Interestingly, the patterns are more than indirectly derived from Alhambra vase no. 290, whose decoration is not typical of its counterparts. Did Plácido know the Alhambra vase first hand, and was he working from this knowledge? If so, he seems to depart from his model in the scallops of the handles. However, B. Marti­nez Caviró, in her 'La Loza Dorada', reproduces, without attribution, two late eighteenth-century engravings from a single source illustrating Alhambra vases. These two engravings in this unidentified work may well have served Plácido as a source of ornament not only for this pair of vases but for other works as well. These urns were commissioned by Alfred Morrison and are recorded as being in his dining room at Carlton House Terrace in 1879. In 1878 they were exhibited in Paris before being delivered to Morrison in London the following year.