📜Horezu Ceramics

      The Horezu ceramics exhibition brings a number of heritage objects from Northern Oltenia, which have been in the same family of potters for three generations. A hundred years ago, the potter used to buy clay from the nearby village and bring it home in an ox-pulled cart. He would shred/hoe/mince it and add water, mix it with his feet. He would leave it outside for a year, to be touched by rain and snow, and then he would shape it into a bowl, a pot, a jug or a mug. After it had dried in the sunshine, the potter would carry it to the kiln, which would be ready to be heated with beech wood; it would be fired and prepared for decoration. His wife would paint it with pigments obtained naturally by crushing minerals.
     The cockerel, the fish, the peacock's tail, the snail, the oak leaf and the rose were the symbols most often painted on Horezu pottery. However, they are not purely decorative; they are known as symbols of protection.